THE  ROUND  TABLE 


This  edition  of  "The  Round  Table"  con 
sists  of  one  thousand  copies  printed  from 
type. 


THE 
ROUND  TABLE 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL 


RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

(gorfjam 

BOSTON 


Copyright,  1913,  by  Richard  G.  Badger 


All  Rights  Reserved 


THE  GORHAM  PRESS,  BOSTON,  U.  S.  A. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I  NATIONALITY  IN  LITERATURE 9 

II  THOREAU'S    "A    WEEK    ON    THE    CONCORD    AND 

MERRIMACK  RIVERS" 43 

III  a.  "ELSIE    VENNER" 65 

b.  "THE  MARBLE  FAUN" 75 

IV  D'lSRAELI    AS    A    NOVELIST 83 

V  "THE   NEW   TIMON" 123 

VI  BROWNING'S  PLAYS  AND  POEMS      .....   163 

VII  THE  WORKS  OF  WALTER  SAVAGE  LANDOR  .      .      .199 

VIII  PALFREY'S  "HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND"  .      .      .   217 


NATIONALITY  IN  LITERATURE 


NATIONALITY  IN  LITERATURE  1 

TIME  is  figured  with  scythe,  hour-glass, 
wallet,  and  slippery  forelock.  He  is  al 
legorized  as  the  devourer  of  his  own  off 
spring.  But  there  is  yet  one  of  his  func 
tions,  and  that  not  the  least  important,  which  wants 
its  representative  among  his  emblems.  To  com 
plete  his  symbolical  outfit,  a  sieve  should  be  hung  at 
his  back.  Busy  as  he  must  be  at  his  mowing,  he  has 
leisure  on  his  hands,  scents  out  the  treacherous 
saltpetre  in  the  columns  of  Thebes,  and  throws  a 
handful  of  dust  over  Nineveh,  that  the  mighty 
hunter  Nimrod  may  not,  wanting  due  rites  of  sep 
ulture,  wander,  a  terrible  shadow,  on  this  side  the 
irrepassable  river.  A  figurative  personage,  one 
would  say,  with  quite  enough  to  do  already,  without 
imposing  any  other  duty  upon  him.  Yet  it  is 
clear  that  he  finds  opportunity  also  thoroughly  to 
sift  men  and  their  deeds,  winnowing  away  with  the 
untired  motion  of  his  wings,  monuments,  cities,  em 
pires,  families,  generations,  races,  as  chaff. 

We  must  go  to  the  middle  of  a  child's  bunch  of 
cherries  to  be  sure  of  finding  perfect  fruit.  The 
outer  circles  will  show  unripened  halves,  stabs  of 

iKavanagh,  a  Tale.     By  HENRY  WADSWORTH  LONGFEL 
LOW.    Boston:  Ticknor,  Reed  &  Fields.    1849. 


10  The  Round  Table 

the  robin's  bill,  and  rain-cracks,  so  soon  does  the 
ambition  of  quantity  deaden  the  nice  conscience  of 
quality.  Indeed,  with  all  of  us,  men  as  well  as 
children,  amount  passes  for  something  of  intrinsic 
value.  But  Time  is  more  choice,  and  makes  his 
sieve  only  the  coarser  from  age  to  age.  One  book, 
one  man,  one  action,  shall  often  be  all  of  a  genera 
tion  busy  with  sword,  pen,  and  trowel,  that  has  not 
slipped  irrevocably  through  the  ever-widening 
meshes. 

We  are  apt  to  forget  this.  In  looking  at  the 
literature  of  a  nation,  we  take  note  only  of  such 
names  as  Dante,  Shakspeare,  Goethe,  not  remem 
bering  what  new  acres  have  been  added  to  the  wide 
chaff-desert  of  Oblivion,  that  we  may  have  these 
great  kernels  free  from  hull  and  husk.  We  over 
look  the  fact  that  contemporary  literature  has  not 
yet  been  put  into  the  sieve,  and  quite  gratuitously 
blush  for  the  literary  shortcomings  of  a  whole  con 
tinent.  For  ourselves,  we  have  long  ago  got  rid 
of  this  national  (we  might  call  it  hemispherical) 
sensitiveness,  as  if  there  were  anything  in  our 
western  half-world  which  stimulated  it  to  produce 
great  rivers,  lakes,  and  mountains,  mammoth  pump 
kins,  Kentucky  giants,  two-headed  calves,  and  what 
not,  yet  at  the  same  time  rendered  it  irremediably 
barren  of  great  poets,  painters,  sculptors,  musi 
cians,  and  men  generally.  If  there  be  any  such  sys 
tem  of  natural  compensations,  whereby  geological 
is  balanced  against  human  development,  we  may,  at 
least,  console  ourselves  with  the  anticipation,  that 
America  can  never  (from  scientifically  demonstra- 


Nationality  in  Literature  11 

ble  inability)   incur  the  odium  of  mothering  the 
greatest  fool. 

There  is,  nevertheless,  something  agreeable  in 
being  able  to  shift  the  responsibility  from  our  own 
shoulders  to  the  broader  ones  of  a  continent.  When 
anxious  European  friends  inquire  after  our  Art 
and  our  Literature,  we  have  nothing  to  do  but  to 
refer  them  to  Mount  Washington  or  Lake  Su 
perior.  It  is  their  concern,  not  ours.  We  yield 
them  without  scruple  to  the  mercies  of  foreign  re 
viewers.  Let  those  generously  solicitous  persons 
lay  on  and  spare  not.  There  are  no  such  traitors 
as  the  natural  features  of  a  country  which  betray 
their  sacred  trusts.  They  should  be  held  strictly 
to  their  responsibilities,  as,  in  truth,  what  spectacle 
more  shameful  than  that  of  a  huge,  lubberly  moun 
tain,  hiding  its  talent  under  a  napkin,  or  a  repudi 
ating  river?  Our  geographers  should  look  to  it, 
and  instil  proper  notions  on  this  head.  In  stating 
the  heights  of  our  mountains  and  the  lengths  of  our 
rivers,  they  should  take  care  to  graduate  the  scale 
of  reproach  with  a  scrupulous  regard  to  every  ad 
ditional  foot  and  mile.  They  should  say,  for  ex 
ample,  that  such  a  peak  is  six  thousand  three  hun 
dred  feet  high,  and  has  never  yet  produced  a  poet ; 
that  the  river  so-and-so  is  a  thousand  miles  long, 
and  has  wasted  its  energies  in  the  manufacture  of 
alligators  and  flatboatmen.  On  the  other  hand, 
they  should  remember  to  the  credit  of  the  Mississ 
ippi,  that,  being  the  longest  river  in  the  world,  it 
has  very  properly  produced  the  longest  painter, 
whose  single  work  would  overlap  by  a  mile  or  two 


12  The  Bound  Table 

the  pictures  of  all  the  old  masters  stitched  together. 
We  can  only  hope  that  it  will  never  give  birth  to  a 
poet  long  in  proportion. 

Since  it  seems  to  be  so  generally  conceded,  that 
the  form  of  an  author's  work  is  entirely  determined 
by  the  shape  of  his  skull,  and  that  in  turn  by  the 
peculiar  configuration  of  his  native  territory,  per 
haps  a  new  system  of  criticism  should  be  framed  in 
accordance  with  these  new  developments  of  sci 
ence.  Want  of  sublimity  would  be  inexcusable 
in  a  native  of  the  mountains,  and  sameness  in  one 
from  a  diversified  region,  while  flatness  could  not 
fairly  be  objected  to  a  dweller  on  the  prairies,  nor 
could  eminent  originality  be  demanded  of  a  writer 
bred  where  the  surface  of  the  country  was  only 
hilly  or  moderately  uneven.  Authors,  instead  of 
putting  upon  their  titlepages  the  names  of  previ 
ous  works,  or  of  learned  societies  to  which  they 
chance  to  belong,  should  supply  us  with  an  exact 
topographical  survey  of  their  native  districts. 
The  Himalaya  mountains  are,  we  believe,  the 
highest  yet  discovered,  and  possibly  society  would 
find  its  account  in  sending  the  greater  part  of  our 
poets  thither,  as  to  a  university,  either  by  subscrip 
tion  or  by  a  tax  laid  for  the  purpose.  How  our 
literature  is  likely  to  be  affected  by  the  acquisition 
of  the  mountain  ranges  of  California,  remains  to 
be  seen.  Legislators  should  certainly  take  such 
matters  into  consideration  in  settling  boundary 
lines,  and  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts 
should  weigh  well  the  responsibility  it  may  incur 
to  posterity,  before  transferring  to  New  York  the 


Nationality  in  Literature  13 

lofty  nook  of  Boston  Corner  with  its  potential 
Homers  and  Miltons. 

But  perhaps  we  have  too  hastily  taken  the  delin 
quency  of  our  physical  developments  for  granted. 
Nothing  has  hitherto  been  demanded  of  rivers  and 
lakes  in  other  parts  of  the  world,  except  fish  and 
mill  privileges,  or,  at  most,  a  fine  waterfall  or  a 
pretty  island.  The  received  treatises  on  moun 
tainous  obstetrics  give  no  hint  of  any  parturition 
to  be  expected,  except  of  mice.  So  monstrous  a 
conception  as  that  of  a  poet  is  nowhere  on  record; 
and  what  chloroform  can  we  suggest  to  the  practi 
tioner  who  should  be  taken  unawares  by  such  a 
phenomenon? 

At  least,  before  definite  sentence  be  passed 
against  us,  the  period  of  gestation  which  a  country 
must  go  through,  ere  it  bring  forth  a  great  poet, 
should  be  ascertained  with  scientific  exactness. 
Let  us  not  be  in  any  hurry  to  resort  to  a  Cesarian 
operation.  Poets,  however  valuable  in  their  own 
esteem,  are  not,  after  all,  the  most  important  pro 
ductions  of  a  nation.  If  we  can  frame  a  common 
wealth  in  which  it  shall  not  be  a  misfortune  to  be 
born,  in  which  there  shall  never  be  a  pair  of  hands 
nor  a  mouth  too  much,  we  shall  be  as  usefully  em 
ployed  as  if  we  should  flower  with  a  Dante  or  so, 
and  remain  a  bony  stalk  forever  after.  We  can, 
in  the  meantime,  borrow  a  great  poet  when  we 
want  one,  unless  the  pleasure  and  profit  which  we 
derive  from  the  works  of  a  great  master,  depend 
upon  the  proprietary  right  in  him  secured  to  us 
by  compatriotism.  For  ourselves,  we  should  be 


14  The  Round  Table 

strongly  inclined  to  question  any  exclusive  claim 
to  Shakspeare  on  the  part  of  our  respected  rela 
tive,  John  Bull,  who  could  do  nothing  better  than 
look  foolish  when  the  great  dramatist  was  called 
bizarre,,  and  who  has  never  had  either  the  taste  or 
the  courage  to  see  a  single  one  of  his  most  charac 
teristic  plays  acted  as  he  wrote  it. 

The  feeling  that  it  was  absolutely  necessary  to 
our  respectability  that  we  should  have  a  literature, 
has  been  a  material  injury  to  such  as  we  have  had. 
Our  criticism  has  oscillated  between  the  two  ex 
tremes  of  depreciation  and  overpraise.  On  the 
one  hand,  it  has  not  allowed  for  the  variations  of 
the  magnetic  needle  of  taste,  and  on  the  other,  it 
has  estimated  merit  by  the  number  of  degrees 
west  from  Greenwich.  It  seems  never  to  have 
occurred  to  either  sect  of  critics,  that  there  were 
such  things  as  principles  of  judgment  immutable 
as  those  of  mathematics.  One  party  has  been 
afraid  to  commend  lest  an  English  Reviewer 
might  afterward  laugh;  the  other  has  eulogized 
because  it  considered  so  terrible  a  catastrophe 
probable.  The  Stamp  Act  and  the  Boston  Port 
Bill  scarcely  produced  a  greater  excitement  in 
America  than  the  appalling  question,  Who  reads 
an  American  book?  It  is  perfectly  true,  that  the 
amount  of  enlightenment  which  a  reader  will  re 
ceive  from  a  book  depends  upon  the  breadth  of 
surface  which  he  brings  within  its  influence,  for 
we  never  get  something  for  nothing;  but  we  would 
deferentially  suggest  for  the  relief  of  many  a  still 
trembling  soul,  repeating  to  itself  the  quid  sum 


Nationality  in  Literature  15 

miser  tune  dicturus  to  that  awful  question  from 
the  Edinburgh  judgment-seat,  that  it  is  barely 
possible  that  the  power  of  a  book  resides  in  the 
book  itself,  and  that  real  books  somehow  compel 
an  audience  without  extraneous  intervention. 
From  the  first,  it  was  impossible  that  Art  should 
show  here  the  successive  stages  of  growth  which 
have  characterized  it  in  the  Old  World.  It  is  only 
geographically  that  we  can  call  ourselves  a  new 
nation.  However  else  our  literature  may  avoid 
the  payment  of  its  liabilities,  it  can  surely  never 
be  by  a  plea  of  infancy.  Intellectually,  we  were 
full-grown  at  the  start.  Shakspeare  had  been 
dead  five  years,  and  Milton  was  eleven  years  old, 
when  Mary  Chilton  leaped  ashore  on  Plymouth 
Rock. 

In  looking  backward  or  forward  mentally,  we 
seem  to  be  infected  with  a  Chinese  incapacity  of 
perspective.  We  forget  the  natural  foreshorten 
ing,  taking  objects  as  they  are  reflected  upon  our 
retina,  and  neglecting  to  supply  the  proper  inter 
stices  of  time.  This  is  equally  true  whether  we 
are  haruspicating  the  growth  of  desired  opinions 
and  arts,  or  are  contemplating  those  which  are 
already  historical.  Thus,  we  know  statistically 
the  amount  which  any  race  or  nation  has  stored  in 
its  intellectual  granaries,  but  make  no  account  of 
the  years  of  scarcity,  of  downright  famine  even, 
which  have  intervened  between  every  full  harvest. 
There  is  an  analogy  between  the  successive  stages 
of  a  literature  and  those  of  a  plant.  There  is, 
first  of  all,  the  seed,  then  the  stalk,  and  then  the 


16  The  Round  Table 

seed  again.  What  a  length  of  stalk  between 
Chaucer  and  Spenser,  and  again  between  Milton 
and  Wordsworth!  Except  in  India,  perhaps,  it 
would  be  impossible  to  affirm  confidently  an  indig 
enous  literature.  The  seed  has  been  imported, 
accidentally  or  otherwise,  as  the  white-weed  and 
Hessian  fly  into  America.  Difference  of  soil, 
climjate,  and  exposure  will  have  their  legitimate 
influence,  but  characteristics  enough  ordinarily 
remain  for  the  tracing  of  the  pedigree.  The  local 
ity  of  its  original  production  is  as  indisputable  as 
that  of  the  garden  of  Eden.  Only  this  is  certain, 
that  our  search  carries  us  farther  and  farther 
eastward. 

No  literature,  of  which  we  have  authentic 
record  or  remains,  can  be  called  national  in  this 
limited  and  restricted  sense.  Nor,  if  one  could  be 
found,  would  the  calling  it  so  be  commendation. 
The  best  parts  of  the  best  authors  in  all  languages 
can  be  translated ;  but,  had  they  this  element  of  ex 
clusive  nationality,  the  idea  would  demand  a  lexi 
con  as  well  as  the  language  which  enveloped  it. 
This  shell  within  a  shell  would  give  more  trouble 
in  the  cracking  than  any  author  can  safely  demand 
of  his  readers.  Only  a  Dante  can  compel  us  to 
take  an  interest  in  the  petty  local  politics  of  his 
day.  No  grubs  were  ever  preserved  in  such 
amber.  No  Smiths  and  Browns  were  ever  ele 
vated  upon  so  sublime  and  time-defying  pinnacles 
of  love,  horror,  and  pity.  The  key  by  which  we 
unlock  the  great  galleries  of  Art  is  their  common 
human  interest.  Nature  supplies  us  with  lexicon, 


Nationality  in  Literature  17 

commentary,  and  glossary  to  the  great  poems  of 
all  ages. 

It  would  be  hard  to  estimate  the  immediate  in 
debtedness  of  Grecian  literature;  easier  to  reckon 
how  much  must  have  been  due  to  the  indirect  in 
fluence  of  a  religion  and  philosophy,  whose  esoteric 
ideas  were  of  Egyptian  derivation.  Aristophanes 
is  perhaps  the  only  Grecian  poet  who  is  character 
ized  by  that  quality  of  nationality  of  which  we  are 
speaking.  Nay,  it  is  something  intenser  than 
mere  nationality  in  which  his  comedy  is  steeped. 
It  is  not  the  spirit  of  Greece,  not  even  of  Attica, 
but  of  Athens.  It  is  cockneyism,  not  nationality. 
But  his  humor  is  more  than  Athenian.  Were  it 
not  so,  it  would  be  dreary  work  enough  decipher 
ing  jokes,  as  it  were,  in  a  mummypit,  by  the  dim 
light  of  the  scholiast's  taper,  too  choked  with  dust 
and  smoke  to  do  anything  but  cough  when  we  are 
solemnly  assured  that  we  have  come  to  the  point. 

There  is  a  confusion  in  men's  minds  upon  this 
subject.  Nationality  and  locality  are  not  dis 
tinguished  from  one  another;  and  were  this  jumble 
fairly  cleared  up,  it  would  appear  that  there  was  a 
still  farther  confounding  of  truth  to  nature  with 
fidelity  of  local  coloring.  Mere  nationality  is  no 
more  nor  less  than  so  much  provincialism,  and  will 
be  found  but  a  treacherous  antiseptic  for  any 
poem.  It  is  because  they  are  men  and  women, 
that  we  are  interested  in  the  characters  of  Homer. 
The  squabbles  of  a  score  of  petty  barbarian  chiefs, 
and  the  siege  of  a  city  which  never  existed,2  would 

2  Written  before  Schliemann's  discoveries. — ED. 


18  The  Round  Table 

have  been  as  barren  and  fruitless  to  us  as  a  Welsh 
genealogy,  had  the  foundations  of  the  Iliad  been 
laid  no  wider  and  deeper  than  the  Troad.  In 
truth,  the  only  literature  which  can  be  called 
purely  national  is  the  Egyptian.  What  poetry, 
what  philosophy,  the  torch  of  the  Arab  has  fruit 
lessly  lighted  up  for  European  eyes,  we  as  yet 
know  not;  but  that  any  ideas  valuable  to  mankind 
are  buried  there,  we  do  not  believe.  These  are 
not  at  the  mercy  of  sand,  or  earthquake,  or  over 
flow.  No  race  perishes  without  intellectual  heirs, 
but  whatever  was  locally  peculiar  in  their  litera 
ture,  their  art,  or  their  religious  symbols,  becomes 
in  time  hieroglyphical  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  to 
be,  perhaps,  painfully  deciphered  for  the  verifica 
tion  of  useless  history,  but  incapable  of  giving  an 
impulse  to  productive  thought.  Literature  sur 
vives,  not  because  of  its  nationality,  but  in  spite 
of  it. 

After  the  United  States  had  achieved  their  inde 
pendence,  it  was  forthwith  decided  that  they  could 
not  properly  be  a  nation  without  a  literature  of 
their  own.  As  if  we  had  been  without  one!  As 
if  Shakspeare,  sprung  from  the  race  and  the  class 
which  colonized  New  England,  had  not  been  also 
ours!  As  if  we  had  no  share  in  the  puritan  and 
republican  Milton,  we  who  had  cherished  in  secret 
for  more  than  a  century  the  idea  of  the  great  puri 
tan  effort,  and  at  last  embodied  it  in  a  living  com 
monwealth!  But  this  ownership  in  common  was 
not  enough  for  us,  and,  as  partition  was  out  of  the 
question,  we  must  have  a  drama  and  an  epos  of  our 


Nationality  in  Literature  19 

owjn.  It  must  be  national,  too;  we  must  have  it 
all  to  ourselves.  Other  nations  kept  their  poets, 
and  so  must  we.  We  were  to  set  up  a  literature 
as  people  set  up  a  carriage,  in  order  to  be  as  good 
as  our  neighbors.  It  was  even  seriously  proposed 
to  have  a  new  language.  Why  not,  since  we  could 
afford  it?  Beside,  the  existing  ones  were  all  too 
small  to  contain  our  literature  whenever  we  should 
get  it.  One  enthusiast  suggested  the  ancient 
Hebrew,  another  a  firenew  tongue  of  his  own  in 
vention.  Meanwhile,  we  were  busy  growing  a 
literature.  We  watered  so  freely,  and  sheltered 
so  carefully,  as  to  make  a  soil  too  damp  and  shaded 
for  anything  but  mushrooms;  wondered  a  little 
why  no  oaks  came  up,  and  ended  by  voting  the 
mushroom  an  oak,  an  American  variety.  Joel 
Barlow  made  the  lowest  bid  for  the  construction 
of  our  epos,  got  the  contract,  and  delivered  in  due 
season  the  Columbiad,  concerning  which  we  can 
only  regret  that  it  had  not  been  entitled  to  a  still 
higher  praise  of  nationality  by  being  written  in 
one  of  the  proposed  new  languages. 

One  would  think  that  the  Barlow  experiment 
should  have  been  enough.  But  we  are  still  re 
quested  by  critics,  both  native  and  foreign,  to 
produce  a  national  literature,  as  if  it  were  some 
school  exercise  in  composition  to  be  handed  in  by 
a  certain  day.  The  sharp  struggle  of  a  day  or  a 
year  may  settle  the  question  of  a  nation's  political 
independence,  but  even  for  that,  there  must  be  a 
long  moral  preparation.  The  first  furrow  drawn 
by  an  English  plow  in  the  thin  soil  of  Plymouth 


20  The  Round  Table 

was  truly  the  first  line  in  our  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence.  Jefferson  was  not  the  prophet  looking 
forth  into  the  future,  but  the  scribe  sitting  at  the 
feet  of  the  past.  But  nationality  is  not  a  thing 
to  be  won  by  the  sword.  We  may  safely  trust  to 
the  influence  of  our  institutions  to  produce  all  of 
it  that  is  valuable.  Let  us  be  content  that,  if  we 
have  been  to  blame  for  a  Columjbiad,  we  have  also 
given  form,  life,  and  the  opportunity  of  entire 
development  to  social  ideas  ever  reacting  with 
more  and  more  force  upon  the  thought  and  the 
literature  of  the  Old  World. 

The  poetry  and  romance  of  other  nations  are 
assumed  to  be  national,  inasmuch  as  they  occupy 
themselves  about  local  traditions  or  objects.  But 
we,  who  never  had  any  proper  youth  as  a  nation, 
never  had  our  mythic  period  either.  We  had  no 
cradle  and  no  nursery  to  be  haunted  with  such 
bugaboos.  One  great  element  of  external  and 
immediate  influence  is  therefore  wanting  to  our 
poets.  They  cannot,  as  did  Goethe  in  his  "Faust," 
imbue  an  old  legend,  which  already  has  a  hold 
upon  the  fancy  and  early  associations  of  their 
countrymen,  with  a  modern  and  philosophical 
meaning  which  shall  make  it  interesting  to  their 
mature  understandings  and  cultivated  imagina 
tions.  Whatever  be  the  cause,  no  race  into  whose 
composition  so  large  a  Teutonic  element  has  en 
tered,  is  divided  by  such  an  impassable  chasm  of 
oblivion  and  unbelief  from  the  ancestral  mythology 
as  the  English.  Their  poets  accordingly  are  not 
popular  in  any  true  sense  of  the  word,  and  have 


Nationality  in  Literature  21 

influenced  the  thought  and  action  of  their  country 
men  less  than  those  of  any  other  nation  except 
those  of  ancient  Rome.  Poets  in  other  countries 
have  mainly  contributed  to  the  creating  and  keep 
ing  alive  of  national  sentiment;  but  the  English 
owe  theirs  wholly  to  the  sea  which  islands  them. 
Chaucer  and  Spenser  are  Normans,  and  their 
minds  open  most  fairly  southward.  Skelton,  the 
Swift  of  his  day,  a  purely  English  poet,  is  for 
gotten.  Shakspeare,  thoroughly  English  as  he  is, 
has  chosen  foreign  subjects  for  the  greatest  of  his 
dramas,  as  if  to  show  that  genius  is  cosmopolitan. 
The  first  thorough  study,  criticism,  and  consequent 
appreciation  of  him  we  owe  to  the  Germans;  and 
he  can  in  no  sense  be  called  national  except  by 
accident  of  birth.  Even  if  we  grant  that  he  drew 
his  fairy  mythology  from  any  then  living  faith 
among  his  countrymen,  this  formed  no  bond  of 
union  between  him  and  then%,  and  was  even  re 
garded  as  an  uncouthness  and  barbarism  till  long 
after  every  vestige  of  such  faith  was  obliterated. 
If  we  concede  any  nationality  to  Milton's  great 
poem,  we  must  at  the  same  time  allow  to  the  English 
an  exclusive  title  to  the  localities  where  the  scene 
is  laid,  a  title  which  they  would  hardly  be  anx 
ious  to  put  forward  in  respect,  at  least,  to  one  of 
them.  When  he  was  meditating  a  national  poem, 
it  was,  he  tells  us,  on  the  legend  of  Arthur,  who,  if 
he  had  ever  existed  at  all,  would  have  been  English 
only  in  the  same  sense  that  Tecumseh  is  American. 
Coleridge,  among  his  thousand  reveries,  hovered 
over  the  same  theme,  but  settled  at  last  upon  the 


22  The  Round  Table 

siege  of  Jerusalem  by  Titus  as  the  best  epical 
subject  remaining.  Byron,  in  his  greatest  poem, 
alludes  only  to  England  in  a  rather  contemptuous 
farewell.  Those  strains  of  Wordsworth,  which 
have  entitled  his  name  to  a  place  on  the  selecter 
list  of  English  poets,  are  precisely  the  ones  in 
which  England  has  only  a  common  property  with 
the  rest  of  mankind.  He  could  never  have  swum 
over  Lethe  with  the  sonnets  to  the  river  Duddon 
in  his  pocket.  Whether  we  look  for  the  cause  in 
the  origin  of  the  people,  or  in  their  insular  posi 
tion,  the  English  mind  has  always  been  character 
ized  by  an  emigrating  tendency.  Their  most 
truly  national  epic  was  the  colonizing  of  America. 
If  we  admit  that  it  is  meritorious  in  an  author 
to  seek  for  a  subject  in  the  superstitions,  legends, 
and  historical  events  of  his  own  peculiar  country 
or  district,  yet  these  (unless  delocalized  by  their 
own  intrinsic  meaning)  are  by  nature  ephemeral, 
and  a  wide  tract  of  intervening  years  makes  them 
as  truly  foreign  as  oceans,  mountains,  or  deserts 
could.  Distance  of  time  passes  its  silent  statute 
of  outlawry  and  alienage  against  them,  as  effect 
ually  as  distance  of  space.  Indeed,  in  that  strict 
ness  with  which  the  martinets  of  nationality  use 
the  term,  it  would  be  a  hard  thing  for  any  people 
to  prove  an  exclusive  title  to  its  myths  and  legends. 
Take,  for  example,  the  story  of  Wayland  the 
Smith,  curious  as  furnishing  the  undoubted  orig 
inal  of  the  incident  of  Tell  and  the  apple,  and  for 
its  analogies  with  the  Grecian  fable  of  Daedalus. 
This,  after  being  tracked  through  the  folklore  of 


Nationality  in  Literature  23 

nearly  all  the  nations  of  Northern  Europe,  was  at 
last,  to  the  great  relief  of  the  archseologic  mind, 
supposed  to  be  treed  in  Scandinavia,  because  the 
word  voelund  was  found  to  mean  smith  among  the 
Icelanders.  Yet  even  here  we  cannot  rest  secure 
that  this  piece  of  mythical  property  has  been  re 
stored  to  its  rightful  owners.  As  usual  in  such 
cases,  investigation  points  Asia-ward,  and  the  same 
word  is  found  with  the  same  signification  in 
Ceylon.  However  unsatisfying  in  other  respects, 
the  search  has  at  least  turned  up  a  euphonious 
synonym  for  the  name  Smith,  which  might  be 
assumed  by  any  member  of  that  numerous 
patronymic  guild  desirous  of  attaining  a  nearer 
approach  to  individuality. 

But  even  the  most  indisputable  proof  of  original 
ownership  is  of  no  great  account  in  these  matters. 
These  tools  of  fancy  cannot  be  branded  with  the 
name  of  any  exclusive  proprietor.  They  are  his 
who  can  use  them.  Poor  Peter  Glaus  cries  out  in 
vain  that  he  has  been  robbed  of  himself  by  the 
native  of  a  country  undiscovered  when  he  took  his 
half-century's  nap  on  the  Kypphauser  mountains. 
Caret  vote  sacro,  and  nobody  gives  him  the  least 
heed.  He  has  become  the  shadow,  and  Rip  Van 
Winkle  the  substance.  Perhaps  he  has  made  up 
his  mind  to  it  by  this  time,  and  contrives  to  turn 
an  honest  penny  among  the  shades  by  exhibiting 
himself  as  the  Original  Rip  Van  Winkle.  We 
trust,  for  the  honor  of  our  country,  that  Rip 
brazens  it  out  there,  and  denounces  the  foreign 
impostor  in  the  purest — American,  we  were  going 


24  The  Round  Table 

to  say;  but  here  another  nationality  interposes  its 
claim,  and  we  must  put  up  with  Low  Dutch. 

The  only  element  of  permanence  which  belongs 
to  myth,  legend,  or  history,  is  exactly  so  much  of 
each  as  refuses  to  be  circumscribed  by  provincial 
boundaries.  Whence  once  superstitions,  customs, 
and  historic  personages  are  dead  and  buried  in 
antiquarian  treatises  or  county  annals,  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  resurrection  for  them.  The  poet 
who  encumbers  himself  with  them  takes  just  that 
amount  of  unnecessary  burthen  upon  his  shoul 
ders.  He  is  an  antiquary,  not  a  creator,  and  is 
writing  what  posterity  will  read  as  a  catalogue 
rather  than  a  poem.  There  is  a  homeliness  about 
great  genius  which  leads  it  to  glorify  the  place  of 
its  "kindly  engendure,"  (as  Chaucer  calls  it,) 
either  by  a  tender  allusion,  or  by  images  and  de 
scriptions  drawn  from  that  fairest  landscape  in 
the  gallery  of  memory.  But  it  is  a  strange  con 
fusion  of  thought  to  attribute  to  a  spot  of  earth 
the  inspiration  whose  source  is  in  a  universal  senti 
ment.  It  is  the  fine  humanity,  the  muscular  sense, 
and  the  generous  humor  of  Burns  which  save  him 
from  being  merely  Scotch,  like  a  score  of  rhymes 
ters  as  national  as  he.  The  Homers  of  Little 
Pedlington  die,  as  their  works  died  before  them, 
and  are  forgotten;  but  let  a  genius  get  born  there, 
and  one  touch  of  his  nature  shall  establish  even 
for  Little  Pedlington  an  immortal  consanguinity 
which  the  whole  world  shall  be  eager  to  claim. 
The  field-mouse  and  the  mountain-daisy  are  not 
Scotch,  and  Tarn  o'  Shanter  died  the  other  day 


Nationality  in  Literature  25 

within  a  mile  of  where  we  are  writing.  Measuring 
Bums  by  that  which  is  best  in  him,  and  which 
ensures  to  him  a  length  of  life  coincident  with  that 
of  the  human  heart,  he  is  as  little  national  as 
Shakspeare,  and  no  more  an  alien  in  Iowa  than  in 
Ayrshire.  There  is  a  vast  difference  between 
truth  to  nature  and  truth  to  fact;  an  impassable 
gulf  between  genius,  which  deals  only  with  the 
true,  and  that  imitative  faculty  which  patiently 
and  exactly  reproduces  the  actual.  This  makes 
the  distinction  between  the  works  of  Fielding, 
which  delight  and  instruct  forever,  and  those  of 
Smollett,  which  are  of  value  as  affording  a  clear 
insight  into  contemporaneous  modes  of  life,  but 
neither  warm  the  heart  nor  impregnate  the  imag 
ination.  It  is  this  higher  and  nobler  kind  of  truth 
which  is  said  to  characterize  the  portraits  of  Titian, 
which  gives  an  indefinable  attraction  to  those  of 
Page,  and  which  inspires  the  busts  of  Powers. 
This  excuses  meagreness  of  color  and  incorrect 
ness  of  drawing  in  Hogarth,  who  was  truly  rather 
a  great  dramatist  than  a  great  painter,  and  gives 
them'  that  something  which  even  indifferent  en 
graving  cannot  destroy,  any  more  than  bad  print 
ing  can  extinguish  Shakspeare. 

This  demand  for  a  nationality  bounded  histori 
cally  and  geographically  by  the  independent 
existence  and  territory  of  a  particular  race  or 
fraction  of  a  race,  would  debar  us  of  our  rightful 
share  in  the  past  and  the  ideal.  It  was  happily 
illustrated  by  that  parochially  national  Gascon, 
who  would  have  been  edified  by  the  sermon  had  it 


26  The  Bound  Table 

been  his  good  fortune  to  belong  to  the  parish. 
Let  us  be  thankful  that  there  is  no  court  by  which 
we  can  be  excluded  from  our  share  in  the  inherit 
ance  of  the  great  poets  of  all  ages  and  countries, 
to  which  our  simple  humanity  entitles  us.  No 
great  poet  has  ever  sung  but  the  whole  human 
race  has  been,  sooner  or  later,  the  wiser  and  better 
for  it.  Above  all,  let  us  not  tolerate  in  our  criti 
cism  a  principle  which  would  operate  as  a  prohib 
itory  tariff  of  ideas.  The  intellect  is  a  dioecious 
plant,  and  books  are  the  bees  which  carry  the 
quickening  pollen  from  one  to  another  mind.  It 
detracts  nothing  from  Chaucer  that  we  can  trace 
in  him!  the  influences  of  Dante  and  Boccaccio; 
nothing  from  Spenser  that  he  calls  Chaucer  mas 
ter;  nothing  from  Shakspeare  that  he  acknowl 
edges  how  dear  Spenser  was  to  him;  nothing  from 
Milton  that  he  brought  fire  from  Hebrew  and 
Greek  altars.  There  is  no  degradation  in  such  in 
debtedness.  Venerable  rather  is  this  apostolic 
succession,  and  inspiring  to  see  the  vitai  lampada 
passed  thus  from  consecrated  hand  to  hand. 

Nationality,  then,  is  only  a  less  narrow  form  of 
provincialism,  a  sublimer  sort  of  clownishness  and 
ill-manners.  It  deals  in  jokes,  anecdotes,  and 
allusions  of  such  purely  local  character  that  a 
majority  of  the  company  are  shut  out  from  all 
approach  to  an  understanding  of  them.  Yet  so 
universal  a  demand  must  have  for  its  basis  a  more 
or  less  solid  substratum  of  truth.  There  are  un 
doubtedly  national,  as  truly  as  family,  idiosyn 
crasies,  though  we  think  that  these  will  get  dis- 


Nationality  in  Literature  27 

played  without  any  special  schooling  for  that  end. 
The  substances  with  which  a  nation  is  compelled 
to  work  will  modify  its  results,  as  well  intellec 
tual  as  material.  The  still  renewing  struggle  with 
the  unstable  desert  sands  gave  to  the  idea  of  du 
rability  in  the  Egyptian  imagination  a  prepon 
derance  still  further  increased  by  the  necessity  of 
using  granite,  whose  toughness  of  fibre  and  vague 
ness  of  coloring  yielded  unwillingly  to  fineness  of 
outline,  but  seemed  the  natural  helpmates  of  mas- 
siveness  and  repose.  The  out-of-door  life  of  the 
Greeks,  conducing  at  once  to  health  and  an  uncon 
scious  education  of  the  eye,  and  the  perfection  of 
physical  development  resulting  from  their  palses- 
tral  exercises  and  constantly  displayed  in  them, 
made  the  Greeks  the  first  to  perceive  the  noble 
symmetry  of  the  human  figure,  for  embodying  the 
highest  types  of  which  Pentelicus  supplied  the 
fittest  material.  Corporeal  beauty  and  strength, 
therefore,  entered  largely  into  their  idea  of  the 
heroic,  and  perhaps  it  was  rather  policy  than 
dandyism  which  hindered  Alcibiades  from  learning 
to  play  the  flute.  With  us,  on  the  other  hand, 
clothed  to  the  chin  in  the  least  graceful  costume 
ever  invented  by  man,  and  baked  half  the  year 
with  stoves  and  furnaces,  beauty  of  person  has 
gradually  receded  from  view,  and  wealth  or  brain 
is  the  essential  of  the  modern  novelist's  hero.  It 
may  not  be  fanciful  to  seek  in  climiate,  and  its 
resultant  effects  upon  art,  the  remote  cause  of 
that  fate-element  which  entered  so  largely  into  the 
Greek  drama.  In  proportion  as  sculpture  became 


28  The  Bound  Table 

more  perfect,  the  images  of  the  gods  became  less 
and  less  merely  symbolical,  and  at  last  presented 
to  the  popular  mind  nothing  more  than  actual 
representations  of  an  idealized  humanity.  Before 
this  degradation  had  taken  place,  and  the  divinities 
had  been  vulgarized  in  marble  to  the  common  eye, 
the  ideas  of  the  unseen  and  supernatural  came  to 
the  assistance  of  the  poet  in  giving  interest  to  the 
struggles  or  connivances  between  heroes  and  gods. 
But  presently  a  new  and  deeper  chord  of  the 
imagination  must  be  touched,  and  the  unembodi- 
able  shadow  of  Destiny  was  summoned  up,  to 
mpve  awe  and  pity  as  long  as  the  human  mind  is 
incapable  of  familiarizing  by  precise  definition  the 
fearful  and  the  vague.  In  that  more  purely  ob 
jective  age,  the  conflict  must  be  with  something 
external,  and  the  struggles  of  the  mind  with  itself 
afforded  no  sufficient  theme  for  the  poet.  With 
us  introspection  has  become  a  disease,  and  a  poem 
is  a  self-dissection. 

That  Art  in  America  will  be  modified  by  cir 
cumstances,  we  have  no  doubt,  though  it  is  im 
possible  to  predict  the  precise  form  of  the  moulds 
into  which  it  will  run.  New  conditions  of  life  will 
stimulate  thought  and  give  new  forms  to  its  ex 
pression.  It  may  not  be  our  destiny  to  produce  a 
great  literature,  as,  indeed,  our  genius  seems  to 
find  its  kindliest  development  in  practicalizing 
simpler  and  more  perfect  forms  of  social  organi 
zation.  We  have  yet  many  problems  of  this  kind 
to  work  out,  and  a  continent  to  subdue  with  the 
plough  and  the  railroad,  before  we  are  at  leisure 


Nationality  in  Literature  29 

for  aesthetics.  Our  spirit  of  adventure  will  first 
take  a  material  and  practical  direction,  but  will 
gradually  be  forced  to  seek  outlet  and  scope  in 
unoccupied  territories  of  the  intellect.  In  the 
meantime  we  may  fairly  demand  of  our  literature 
that  it  should  be  national  to  the  extent  of  being  as 
free  from  outworn  conventionalities,  and  as  thor 
oughly  impregnated  with  humane  and  manly  senti 
ment,  as  is  the  idea  on  which  our  political  fabric 
rests.  Let  it  give  a  true  reflection  of  our  social, 
political,  and  household  life.  The  "Poems  on 
Man  in  the  Republic,"  by  Cornelius  Mathews, 
disfigured  as  they  were  by  gross  faults  of  dialect 
and  metre,  had  the  great  merit  of  presenting  the 
prominent  features  of  our  civilization  in  an  Ameri 
can  light.  The  story  of  "Margaret"  is  the  most 
emphatically  American  book  ever  written.  The 
want  of  plan  and  slovenliness  of  construction  are 
characteristic  of  a  new  country.  The  scenery, 
character,  dialect,  and  incidents  mirror  New  Eng 
land  life  as  truly  as  Fresh  Pond  reflects  the  sky. 
The  moral,  also,  pointing  forward  to  a  new  social 
order,  is  the  intellectual  antitype  of  that  restless 
ness  of  disposition,  and  facility  of  migration  which 
are  among  our  chief  idiosyncrasies.  The  mistake 
of  our  imaginative  writers  generally  is  that, 
though  they  may  take  an  American  subject,  they 
costume  it  in  a  foreign  or  antique  fashion.  The 
consequence  is  a  painful  vagueness  and  unreality. 
It  is  like  putting  Roman  drapery  upon  a  statue  of 
Washington,  the  absurdity  of  which  does  not  strike 
us  so  forcibly  because  we  are  accustomed  to  it, 


30  The  Round  Table 

but  which  we  should  recognize  at  once  were  the 
same  treatment  applied  to  Franklin.  The  old 
masters  did  exactly  the  reverse  of  this.  They 
took  ancient  or  foreign  subjects,  but  selected  their 
models  from  their  own  immediate  neighborhood. 
When  Shakspeare  conceived  his  Athenian  mechan 
ics,  he  did  not  cram  with  Grecian  antiquities  in 
order  to  make  them  real  in  speech  and  manners. 
Their  unconscious  prototypes  were  doubtless 
walking  Stratford  streets,  and  demonstrating  to 
any  one  who  had  clear  enough  eyes,  that  stupidity 
and  conceit  were  precisely  the  same  things  on  the 
banks  of  the  Avon  and  those  of  the  Ilissus.  Here 
we  arrive  at  the  truth  which  is  wrapped  up  and 
concealed  in  the  demand  for  nationality  in  litera 
ture.  It  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  this,  that 
authors  should  use  their  own  eyes  and  ears,  and 
not  those  of  other  people.  We  ask  of  them 
human  nature  as  it  appears  in  man,  not  in  books; 
and  scenery  not  at  second  hand  from  the  canvas  of 
painter  or  poet,  but  from  that  unmatched  land 
scape  painted  by  the  Great  Master  upon  the  retina 
of  their  own  eyes.  Though  a  poet  should  make 
the  bobolink  sing  in  Attica,  the  anachorism  is 
nothing,  provided  he  can  only  make  it  truly  sing 
so  that  we  can  hear  it.  He  will  have  no  difficulty 
in  making  his  peace  with  posterity.  The  error  of 
our  advocates  of  nationality  lies  in  their  assigning 
geographical  limits  to  the  poet's  range  of  historical 
characters  as  well  as  to  his  natural  scenery. 
There  is  no  time  or  place  in  human  nature,  and 
Prometheus,  Coriolanus,  Tasso,  and  Tell  are  ours 


Nationality  in  Literature  31 

if  we  can  use  them,  as  truly  as  Washington  or 
Daniel  Boone.  Let  an  American  author  make  a 
living  character,  even  if  it  be  antediluvian,  and 
nationality  will  take  care  of  itself.  The  news 
paper,  the  railroad,  and  the  steamship  are  fast 
obliterating  the  externals  of  distinct  and  hostile 
nationality.  The  Turkish  soldier  has  shrunk  into 
coat  and  pantaloons,  and  reads  Dickens.  But 
human  nature  is  everywhere  the  same,  and  every 
where  inextinguishable.  If  we  only  insist  that  our 
authors  shall  be  good,  we  may  cease  to  feel  nervous 
about  their  being  national.  Excellence  is  an  alien 
nowhere.  And  even  if,  as  we  hear  it  lamented, 
we  have  no  literature,  there  are  a  thousand  other 
ways  of  making  ourselves  useful.  If  the  bobolink 
and  mockingbird  find  no  poet  to  sing  them,  they 
can  afford,  like  Kepler,  to  wait;  and  in  the  mean 
time  they  themselves  will  sing  as  if  nothing  had 
happened.  For  ourselves,  we  confess,  we  have 
hopes.  The  breed  of  poets  is  not  extinct,  nor  has 
Apollo  shot  away  all  the  golden,  singing  arrows 
in  his  quiver.  We  have  a  very  strong  persuasion, 
amounting  even  to  faith,  that  eyes  and  ears  will 
yet  open  on  this  Western  Continent,  and  find  ade 
quate  utterance.  If  some  of  our  birds  have  a 
right  to  feel  neglected,  yet  other  parts  of  our 
natural  history  have  met  with  due  civility;  and  if 
the  pine  tree  complain  of  the  tribute  which  Emer 
son  has  paid  it,  we  surrender  it  to  the  lumberer 
and  the  saw-mill  without  remorse.  It  must  be  an 
unreasonable  tree,  wooden  at  head  and  heart. 
Nay,  how  are  we  to  know  what  is  preparing  for 


32  The  Bound  Table 

us  at  this  very  moment?  What  herald  had  Chau 
cer,  singing  the  matins  of  that  grand  cathedral- 
service  whose  vespers  we  have  not  yet  heard,  in 
England?  What  external  circumstance  con 
trolled  the  sweet  influence  of  Spenser?  Was 
Gorboduc  a  prologue  that  should  have  led  us  to 
expect  Hamlet?  Did  the  Restoration  furnish  the 
score  for  those  organ-strains  of  Milton,  breaking 
in  with  a  somewhat  unexpected  voluntary  to 
drown  the  thin  song  of  pander  and  parasite  with 
its  sublime  thunders  of  fervor  and  ascription? 
What  collyrium  of  nationality  was  it  that  enabled 
those  pleasant  Irish  eyes  of  Goldsmith  to  pierce 
through  the  artificial  tinsel  and  frippery  of  his  day 
to  that  little  clump  of  roses  at  Wakefield?  Eng 
land  had  long  been  little  better  than  a  province  of 
France  in  song,  when  Wordsworth  struck  the  note 
of  independence,  and  led  the  people  back  to  the  old 
worship.  While  we  are  waiting  for  our  literature, 
let  us  console  ourselves  with  the  following  observa 
tion  with  which  Dr.  Newman  commences  his  His 
tory  of  the  Hebrew  Monarchy.  "Few  nations," 
he  says,  "which  have  put  forth  a  wide  and  endur 
ing  influence  upon  others,  proclaim  themselves  to 
have  been  indigenous  on  the  land  of  their  celeb 
rity."  Or,  if  the  worst  come,  we  can  steal  a 
literature  like  the  Romans,  and  thus  acquire 
another  point  of  similarity  to  that  remarkable 
people,  whom  we  resemble  so  much,  according  to 
the  Quarterly  Review,  in  our  origin. 

Mr.  Longfellow  has  very  good-naturedly  and 
pointedly  satirized  the  rigid  sticklers  for  national- 


Nationality  in  Literature  33 

ity  in  one  of  the  chapters  of  his  "Kavanagh," 
which  we  have  taken  for  the  text  of  some  remarks 
we  have  long  intended  to  make  on  this  subject. 
It  is  time  that  we  should  say  something  about  the 
book  itself.  But  before  doing  this,  we  wish  to 
clear  a  few  misconceptions  which  seem  to  stand  in 
the  way  of  its  fair  appreciation. 

It  is  quite  too  common  a  practice,  both  with 
readers  and  the  more  superficial  class  of  critics, 
to  judge  a  book  by  what  it  is  not,  a  matter  much 
easier  to  determine  than  what  it  is.  Not  only  has 
the  public  taste  lost  its  tone  by  constant  and  long- 
continued  literary  opium-eating,  and  indulgence 
in  romances  highly  spiced  with  adventure,  passion, 
and  crime,  but  the  faculty  of  judgment  (the  bile 
which  secretes  the  nutritive  portion  of  our  intel 
lectual  food)  has  become  weakened  and  indecisive 
under  the  everlasting  flood  of  romantic  slops  with 
which  we  daily  dilute  it.  People  also  very  fre 
quently  take  the  last  book  they  have  read  by  an 
admired  author  as  the  standard  by  which  to 
measure  the  next  that  comes  in  their  way,  no  mat 
ter  how  dissimilar  in  artistic  treatment  and  inten 
tion.  Or  they  merely  ask  the  question,  does  it 
interest  me?  and  thus  make  their  private  taste  (or 
want  of  it)  a  criterion  of  merit,  when  it  should 
rightfully  only  decide  the  question  whether  they 
shall  read  it  or  let  it  alone.  In  such  cases,  the  old 
English  form  of  expression  would  be  both  safe 
and  nxodest,  and  it  likes  me  or  it  likes  me  not 
would  perhaps  express  more  precisely  the  true 
state  of  the  affair. 


34  The  Bound  Table 

The  first  question  to  be  asked  is,  what  was  the 
author's  intention?  Then,  how  has  he  fulfilled  it? 
"Kavanagh,"  one  may  say  pretty  confidently,  is 
not  a  novel,  nor  a  .romance,  nor  a  drama.  It  is 
neither  exciting,  nor  thrilling,  nor  harrowing,  nor 
tempestuously  passionate,  nor  gloomily  terrible, 
nor — in  short  it  is  not  nonsense,  it  is  "Kavanagh." 
We  waive  for  the  present  the  question  whether  it 
be  a  fault  that  it  is  not  what  the  author  especially 
meant  that  it  should  not  be.  That  is  a  grave 
difficulty,  and  one  well  demanding  the  intervention 
of  a  Scriblerus.  Too  nun-Uke  for  me,  says  Public 
Taste,  looking  at  the  lily  of  the  valley;  pity  it  is 
not  a  rose!  Then,  turning  to  the  rose,  an  open- 
bosomed  tiling,  the  Nell  Gwynne  of  flowers, — ah, 
if  it  were  only  a  lily  of  the  valley!  For  ourselves, 
we  are  willing  to  be  thankful  for  both,  as  long  as 
nature  is  bountiful  enough  to  give  them,. 

The  word,  "Tale,"  upon  the  title-page,  if  it  be 
not  merely  a  formal  suffix,  like  the  "Esq."  in  the 
address  of  all  American  letters,  we  consider  a  mis 
nomer.  We  think  a  truer  name  for  the  book 
would  be,  a  prose  pastoral.  It  had  been  better  to 
have  called  it  "Kavanagh"  simply,  and  left  it  to 
the  reader  to  find  out  what  it  was.  And  it  is  not 
as  reader,  but  as  critic,  that  we  make  the  com 
plaint.  For,  if  we  look  at  it  critically  as  assuming 
this  specific  character,  we  find  it  wanting  in  many 
particulars.  Where  the  chief  concern  is  complete 
ness  of  narrative  effect,  there  should  be  no  loose 
ends.  Every  divergent  thread  and  fibre  must  be 
taken  up  and  twisted  firmly  into  the  compact 


Nationality  in  Literature  35 

strand  of  the  leading  design.  If  we  hold  "Kav- 
anagh"  strictly  to  its  responsibilities  as  a  "Tale," 
we  shall  be  obliged  to  condemn  in  it  a  dispropor 
tion  of  parts  to  the  whole,  and  an  elaboration  of 
particulars  at  the  expense  of  unity.  The  truth 
is,  that  there  are  two  distinct  interests  in  "Kav- 
anagh,"  one,  that  of  the  story,  which  centres  in 
Alice,  the  other,  that  of  the  moral,  which  is  illus 
trated  wholly  by  Churchill.  Now  Churchill  is 
made  too  prominent  as  respects  any  relation  he 
has  to  the  tale,  while  the  moral  is  weakened  by  his 
knowing  nothing  of  the  breaking  of  Alice's  heart, 
nor,  indeed,  of  her  love.  As  an  instance  of  what 
we  mean  by  the  disproportion  spoken  of  above,  we 
should  cite  the  whole  scene  between  Churchill  and 
Mr.  Hathaway,  which,  though  true  to  the  life,  is 
false  to  the  interests  of  the  story.  So  of  some  of 
the  conversations  between  Churchill  and  his  wife; 
they  do  not  carry  forward  the  plot,  nor  add  to  our 
insight  into  his  character.  Even  if  they  did,  they 
would  be  too  large  in  proportion  to  the  rest, 
though  we  should  not  willingly  give  up  the  Hindoo 
Mathematics.  It  seems  to  us,  that  if  some  chap 
ters  of  the  book  had  been  given  as  leaves  from 
Churchill's  diary,  and  he  made  acquainted  with 
the  double  passion  for  Kavanagh,  the  parts  would 
have  been  in  better  keeping,  and  the  force  of  the 
moral  heightened. 

We  are  glad  to  dissociate  our  twofold  character 
of  reader  and  critic,  to  which  the  fate  of  the  Dios 
curi  sometimes  may  happen,  the  one  being  in  life 
and  light,  while  the  other  is  in  the  shades.  Let 


36  The  Round  Table 

us  see  if  we  cannot  find  some  condition  on  which 
they  may  enjoy  sunshine  and  happiness  together. 
As  readers,  we,  in  common  with  the  rest,  have  only 
thanks  to  offer.  All  who  love  purity  of  tone, 
tenderness,  and  picturesque  simplicity,  have  in 
curred  a  new  obligation  to  the  author  of  "Kav- 
anagh."  We  will  now  look  at  it  in  what  we  con 
sider  its  truer  character  of  pastoral.  In  this  kind 
of  composition,  repose  is  the  leading  characteristic. 
A  tender  pensiveness  of  tone  best  fulfils  here  the 
requisites  of  art.  It  allows  of  humor  and  pathos, 
only  both  must  be  subdued,  and  neither  grief  nor 
merriment  must  be  allowed  so  noisy  a  vent  as 
would  jar  upon  the  ear  soothed  by  a  certain  out- 
of-doors  quiet  and  contentment.  It  is  a  story  told 
to  us,  as  it  were,  while  we  lie  under  a  tree,  and  the 
ear  is  willing  at  the  same  time  to  take  in  other 
sounds.  The  gurgle  of  the  brook,  the  rustle  of 
the  leaves,  even  noises  of  life  and  toil  (if  they  be 
distant,)  such  as  the  rattle  of  the  white-topped 
wagon  and  the  regular  pulse  of  the  thresher's  flail, 
reconcile  themselves  to  the  main  theme,  and  rein 
force  it  with  a  harmonious  accompaniment.  In 
"Kavanagh"  as  in  "Evangeline,"  we  conceive  it 
to  be  a  peculiar  merit  that  the  story  is  kept  down 
with  so  rigid  a  self-denial.  The  brass  of  the 
orchestra  is  not  allowed  an  undue  prominence. 
This  perfect  keeping,  this  unanimity,  so  to  speak, 
was  more  striking  in  "Evangeline"  than  in  the 
present  work.  The  author  is  here  and  there 
tempted  out  of  his  way,  and  allows  his  hobby-horse 
to  leap  the  fences  of  proportion.  For  example, 


Nationality  in  Literature  37 

the  division  numbered  thirteen  has  no  manner  of 
business  in  the  book.  We  feel  it  as  an  unwarrant 
able  intrusion,  and  do  not  at  once  recover  our  com 
posure.  It  affects  the  interest  and  attention,  as 
an  ill-matching  of  the  figure  on  two  breadths  of 
carpet  affects  the  eye,  which  is  conscious  of  it 
even  when  turned  the  other  way.  We  were  going 
to  object  to  the  episode  of  Sally  Manchester,  as 
having  no  necessary  connection  with  the  rest  of 
the  story,  and  as  not  tending  in  any  way  to  ad 
vance  the  plot.  But  we  remember  that  the  design 
here  does  not  make  the  several  parts  subservient 
to  the  main  incident.  This  is  not  so  much  a  nar 
rative  as  a  succession  of  scenes.  We  walk  through 
the  streets  of  the  village  with  a  friend  who  is 
giving,  as  we  go  along,  a  sketch  of  the  touching 
drama  which  has  passed  under  the  unconscious 
eyes  of  Churchill  in  search  of  a  plot.  As  we 
saunter  on,  we  have  glimpses  of  an  interior,  now 
and  then,  through  open  door  or  window,  and  our 
friend  interrupts  himself  to  tell  us  who  that  was 
that  passed,  or  to  parenthesize  a  good  story  about 
the  person  on  the  other  side  of  the  street  to  whom 
he  himself  directs  our  attention.  There  is  no 
want  of  harmony  in  the  variety,  and  we  retract 
our  half -uttered  criticism,  the  more  readily  as  we 
consider  the  letter  of  Mr.  Cherryfield  as  one  of  the 
best  things  in  the  book.  It  is  absolutely  perfect. 
"Kavanagh"  is,  as  far  as  it  goes,  an  exact 
daguerreotype  of  New  England  life.  We  say 
daguerreotype •,  because  we  are  conscious  of  a  cer 
tain  absence  of  motion  and  color,  which  detracts 


38  The  Round  Table 

somewhat  from  the  vivacity,  though  not  from  the 
truth,  of  the  representation.  From  Mr.  Pendex- 
ter  with  his  horse  and  chaise,  to  Miss  Manchester 
painting  the  front  of  her  house,  the  figures  are 
faithfully  after  nature.  The  story,  too,  is  re 
markably  sweet  and  touching.  The  two  friends, 
with  their  carrier-dove  correspondence,  give  us  a 
pretty  glimpse  into  the  trans-boarding-school  dis 
position  of  the  maiden  mind,  which  will  contrive 
to  carry  everyday  life  to  romance,  since  romance 
will  not  come  to  it.  The  accident  by  which  Alice 
discovers  Kavanagh's  love  for  Cecilia  is  a  singu 
larly  beautiful  invention;  but  we  should  wish  to 
see  with  our  own  eyes  before  we  believed  that  a 
kingfisher  ever  pursued  a  dove,  or,  indeed,  any 
thing  but  a  fish.  Even  the  kingbird,  which  does 
carry  on  a  guerilla  warfare  with  crows  and  hawks 
(slow-flighted  birds,)  would  hardly  pursue  a 
pigeon,  the  swiftest  of  all  flyers. 

It  is  not  unusual  to  make  a  single  work  the 
opportunity  for  passing  definitive  judgment  upon 
an  author.  This  is  not  our  view  of  the  duty  of  a 
critic.  He  is  limited  to  the  book  before  him,  and 
all  departures  from  it  are  impertinences.  We  hope 
that  Mr.  Longfellow  may  live  a  great  many  years 
yet,  and  give  us  a  great  many  more  books.  We 
shall  not  undertake  to  pass  a  sentence  which  he 
may  compel  us  to  revise.  We  shall  only  say  that 
he  is  the  most  popular  of  American  poets,  and  that 
this  popularity  may  safely  be  assumed  to  contain 
in  itself  the  elements  of  permanence,  since  it  has 
been  fairly  earned,  without  any  of  that  subservi- 


Nationality  in  Literature  39 

ence  to  the  baser  tastes  of  the  public  which  char 
acterizes  the  quack  of  letters.  His  are  laurels 
honorably  gained  and  gently  worn.  Without 
comparing  him  with  others,  it  is  enough  if  we 
declare  our  conviction,  that  he  has  composed  poems 
which  will  live  as  long  as  the  language  in  which 
they  are  written. 


THOREAU'S  "A  WEEK  ON  THE  CON 
CORD  AND  MERRIMACK  RIVERS" 


THOREAU'S  "A  WEEK  ON  THE   CON 
CORD  AND  MERRIMACK  RIVERS"  l 

WE  stick  to  the  sea-serpent.  Not  that 
he  is  found  in  Concord  or  Merrimack, 
but  like  the  old  Scandinavian  snake, 
he  binds  together  for  us  the  two  hemis 
pheres  of  Past  and  Present,  of  Belief  and  Science. 
He  is  the  link  which  knits  us  seaboard  Yankees 
with  our  Norse  progenitors,  interpreting  between 
the  age  of  the  dragon  and  that  of  the  railroad- 
train.  We  have  made  ducks  and  drakes  of  that 
large  estate  of  wonder  and  delight  bequeathed  to 
us  by  ancestral  irkings,  and  this  alone  remains 
to  us  unthrift  heirs  of  Linn.  We  give  up  the 
Kraken,  more  reluctantly  the  mermaid,  for  we 
once  saw  one,  no  mulier  formosa,  superne,  no  green- 
haired  maid  with  looking-glass  and  comb,  but  an 
adroit  compound  of  monkey  and  codfish,  suffi 
ciently  attractive  for  purposes  of  exhibition  till  the 
suture  where  the  desinit  in  piscem  began,  grew  too 
obtrusively  visible. 

We  feel  an  undefined  respect  for  a  man  who  has 
seen  the  sea-serpent.  He  is  to  his  brother-fishers 
what  the  poet  is  to  his  fellow-men.  Where  they 
have  seen  nothing  better  than  a  school  of  horse- 
mackerel,  or  the  idle  coils  of  ocean  around  Half- 

*A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimack  Rivers.  By  HENRY 
D.  THOREAU.  Boston  and  Cambridge:  James  Monroe  &  Com 
pany.  1849. 

43 


44  The  Bound  Table 

way  Rock,  he  has  caught  authentic  glimpses  of  the 
withdrawing  mantlehem  of  the  Edda-age.  We 
care  not  for  the  monster  himself.  It  is  not  the 
thing,  but  the  belief  in  the  thing,  that  is  dear  to  us. 
May  it  be  long  before  Professor  Owen  is  comforted 
with  the  sight  of  his  unfleshed  vertebras,  long  be 
fore  they  stretch  many  a  rood  behind  Kimball's  or 
Barnum's  glass,  reflected  in  the  shallow  orbs  of 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Public,  which  stare  but  see  not! 
When  we  read  that  Captain  Spalding  of  the  pink- 
stern  Three  Potties  has  beheld  him  rushing  through 
the  brine  like  an  infinite  series  of  bewitched  mack 
erel-casks,  we  feel  that  the  mystery  of  old  Ocean, 
at  least,  has  not  yet  been  sounded,  that  Faith  and 
Awe  survive  there  unevaporate.  We  once  ven 
tured  the  horsemackerel  theory  to  an  old  fisher 
man,  browner  than  a  tomcod.  "Hosmackril !"  he 
exclaimed  indignantly,  "hosmiackril  be — "  (here 
he  used  a  phrase  commonly  indicated  in  laical 
literature  by  the  same  sign  which  serves  for  Doc 
torate  in  Divinity,)  "don't  yer  spose  I  know  a 
hosmackril?"  The  intonation  of  that  "I"  would 
have  silenced  Professor  Monkbairns  Owen  with 
his  provoking  phoca  forever.  What  if  one  should 
ask  him  if  he  knew  a  trilobite? 

The  fault  of  modern  travelers  is  that  they  see 
nothing  out  of  sight.  They  talk  of  eocene  periods 
and  tertiary  formations,  and  tell  us  how  the  world 
looked  to  the  plesiosaur.  They  take  science  (or 
nescience)  with  them,  instead  of  that  soul  of  gen 
erous  trust  their  elders  had.  All  their  senses  are 
skeptics  and  doubters,  materialists  reporting 


Thoreau  45 

things  for  other  skeptics  to  doubt  still  further 
upon.  Nature  becomes  a  reluctant  witness  upon 
the  stand,  badgered  with  geologist  hammers  and 
phials  of  acid.  There  have  been  no  travelers 
since  those  included  in  Hakluyt  and  Purchas,  ex 
cept  Martin,  perhaps,  who  saw  an  inch  or  two 
into  the  invisible  at  the  Orkneys.  We  have  peri 
patetic  lecturers,  but  no  more  travelers.  Travel 
ers'  stories  are  no  longer  proverbial.  We  have 
picked  nearly  every  apple  (wormy  or  otherwise,) 
from  the  world's  tree  of  Knowledge,  and  that 
without  an  Eve  to  tempt  us.  Two  or  three  have 
hitherto  hung  luckily  beyond  reach  on  a  lofty 
bough  shadowing  the  interior  of  Africa,  but  there 
is  a  Doctor  Bialloblotzky  at  this  very  moment 
pelting  at  them  with  sticks  and  stones.  It  may 
be  only  next  week,  and  these,  too,  bitten  by 
geographers  and  geologists,  will  be  thrown  away. 
We  wish  no  harm!  to  this  worthy  Sclavonian,  but 
his  name  is  irresistibly  suggestive  of  boiled  lobster, 
and  some  of  the  natives  are  not  so  choice  in  their 
animal  food. 

Analysis  is  carried  into  everything.  Even 
Deity  is  subjected  to  chemic  tests.  We  must  have 
exact  knowledge,  a  cabinet  stuck  full  of  facts 
pressed,  dried,  or  preserved  in  spirits,  instead  of  a 
large,  vague  world  our  fathers  had.  Our  modern 
Eden  is  a  hortus  siccus.  Tourists  defraud  rather 
than  enrich  us.  They  have  not  that  sense  of 
aesthetic  proportion  which  characterized  the  elder 
traveler.  Earth  is  no  longer  the  fine  work  of  art 
it  was,  for  nothing  is  left  to  the  imagination.  Job 


46  The  Round  Table 

Hortop,  arrived  at  the  height  of  the  Bermudas, 
thinks  it  full  time  to  throw  us  in  a  merman, — "we 
discovered  a  monster  in  the  sea  who  showed  him 
self  three  times  unto  us  from  the  middle  upwards, 
in  which  parts  he  was  proportioned  like  a  man,  of 
the  compleetion  of  a  mulatto  or  tawny  Italian." 
Sir  John  Hawkins  is  not  satisfied  with  telling  us 
about  the  merely  sensual  Canaries,  but  is  generous 
enough  to  throw  us  in  a  handful  over:  "About 
these  islands  are  certain  flitting  islands,  which  have 
been  oftentimes  seen,  and  when  men  approached 
near  them  they  vanished,  .  .  .  and  therefore 
it  would  seem  he  is  not  yet  born  to  whom  God 
hath  appointed  the  finding  of  them."  Henry 
Hawkes  describes  the  visible  Mexican  cities,  and 
then  is  not  so  frugal  but  that  he  can  give  us  a  few 
invisible  ones.  "The  Spaniards  have  notice  of 
seven  cities  which  the  old  men  of  the  Indians  show 
them  should  lie  toward  the  N.  W.  from  Mexico. 
They  have  used,  and  use  daily,  much  diligence  in 
seeking  of  them,  but  they  cannot  find  any  one  of 
them."  Thus  do  these  generous  ancient  mariners 
make  children  of  us  again.  Their  successors  show 
us  an  earth  effete  and  past  bearing,  tracing  out 
with  the  eyes  of  industrious  fleas  every  wrinkle 
and  crowfoot. 

The  journals  of  the  elder  navigators  are  Prose 
Odysseys.  The  geographies  of  our  ancestors  were 
works  of  fancy  and  imagination.  They  read 
poems  where  we  yawn  over  items.  Their  world 
was  a  huge  wonder-horn,  exhaustless  as  that  which 
Thor  strove  to  drain.  Ours  would  scarce  quench 


Thoreau  47 

the  small  thirst  of  a  bee.  No  modern  voyager 
brings  back  the  magical  foundation  stones  of  a 
Tempest.  No  Marco  Polo,  traversing  the  desert 
beyond  the  city  of  Lok,  would  tell  of  things  able 
to  inspire  the  mind  of  Milton  with 

"Calling  shapes  and  beckoning  shadows  dire 
And  airy  tongues  that  syllable  men's  names 
On  sands  and  shores  and  desert  wildernesses." 

It  was  easy  enough  to  believe  the  story  of  Dante, 
when  two-thirds  of  even  the  upper-world  were  yet 
untraversed  and  unmapped.  With  every  step  of 
the  recent  traveler  our  inheritance  of  the  wonderful 
is  diminished.  Those  beautifully  pictured  notes  of 
the  Possible  are  redeemed  at  a  ruinous  discount  in 
the  hard  and  cumbrous  coin  of  the  actual.  How  are 
we  not  defrauded  and  impoverished?  Does  Cali 
fornia  vie  with  El  Dorado,  or  are  Bruce's  Abys 
sinian  Kings  a  set-off  for  Prester  John?  A  bird 
in  the  bush  is  worth  two  in  the  hand.  And  if  the 
philosophers  have  not  even  yet  been  able  to  agree 
whether  the  world  has  any  existence  independent  of 
ourselves,  how  do  we  not  gain  a  loss  in  every  addi 
tion  to  the  catalogue  of  Vulgar  Errors?  Where 
are  the  fishes  which  nidificated  in  trees?  Where  the 
monopodes  sheltering  themselves  from  the  sun  be 
neath  their  single  umbrella-like  foot,  umbrella-like 
in  everything  but  the  fatal  necessity  of  being  bor 
rowed?  Where  the  Acephali,  with  whom  Herod 
otus,  in  a  kind  of  ecstasy,  wound  up  his  climax  of 
men  with  abnormal  top-pieces?  Where  the  Roc 
whose  eggs  are  possibly  boulders,  needing  no  far- 


48  The  Round  Table 

fetched  theory  of  glacier  or  iceberg  to  account  for 
them?  Where  the  tails  of  the  Britons?  Where 
the  no  legs  of  the  bird  of  Paradise?  Where  the 
Unicorn  with  that  single  horn  of  his,  sovereign 
against  all  manner  of  poisons?  Where  the  foun 
tain  of  Youth?  Where  that  Thessalian  spring 
which,  without  cost  to  the  county,  convicted  and 
punished  perjurers?  Where  the  Amazons  of  Orel- 
lana?  All  these,  and  a  thousand  other  varieties 
we  have  lost,  and  have  got  nothing  instead  of  them. 
And  those  who  have  robbed  us  of  them  have  stolen 
that  which  not  enriches  themselves.  It  is  so  much 
wealth  cast  into  the  sea  beyond  all  approach  of  div 
ing  bells.  We  owe  no  thanks  to  Mr.  J.  E.  Worces 
ter,  whose  Geography  we  studied  enforcedly  at 
school.  Yet  even  he  had  his  relentings,  and  in  some 
softer  moment  vouchsafed  us  a  fine,  inspiring  print 
of  the  Maelstrom,  answerable  to  the  twenty-four 
mile  diameter  of  its  suction.  Year  by  year,  more 
and  more  of  the  world  gets  disenchanted.  Even 
the  icy  privacy  of  the  arctic  and  antarctic  circles  is 
invaded.  Our  youth  are  no  longer  ingenious,  as 
indeed  no  ingenuity  is  demanded  of  them.  Every 
thing  is  accounted  for,  everything  cut  and  dried, 
and  the  world  may  be  put  together  as  easily  as  the 
fragments  of  a  dissected  map.  The  Mysterious 
bounds  nothing  now  on  the  North,  South,  East,  or 
West.  We  have  played  Jack  Horner  with  our 
earth,  till  there  is  never  a  plum  left  in  it. 

Since  we  cannot  have  back  the  old  class  of  voy 
agers,  the  next  thing  we  can  do  is  to  send  poets  out 
a-travelling.  These  will  at  least  see  all  that  re- 


Thoreau  49 

mains  to  be  seen,  and  in  the  way  it  ought  to  be  seen. 
These  will  disentangle  nature  for  us  from  the  var 
ious  snarls  of  man,  and  show  us  the  mighty  mother 
without  paint  or  padding,  still  fresh  and  young, 
full-breasted,  strong-backed,  fit  to  suckle  and  carry 
her  children.  The  poet  is  he  who  bears  the  charm 
of  freshness  in  his  eyes.  He  may  safely  visit  Ni 
agara,  or  those  adopted  children  of  nature  the 
Pyramids,  sure  to  find  them  and  to  leave  them  as 
if  no  eye  had  vulgarized  them  before.  For  the 
ordinary  tourist  all  wells  have  been  muddied  by  the 
caravans  that  have  passed  that  way,  and  his  eye, 
crawling  over  the  monuments  of  nature  and  art, 
adds  only  its  quota  of  staleness. 

Walton  quotes  an  "ingenious  Spaniard"  as  say 
ing,  that  "rivers  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  watery 
element  were  made  for  wise  men  to  contemplate 
and  fools  to  pass  by  without  consideration,"  and 
Blount,  in  one  of  the  notes  to  his  translation  of 
Philostratus,  asserts  that  "as  travelling  does  much 
advantage  wise  men,  so  does  it  no  less  prejudice 
fools."  Mr.  Thoreau  is  clearly  the  man  we  want. 
He  is  both  wise  man  and  poet.  A  graduate  of 
Cambridge — the  fields  and  woods,  the  axe,  the  hoe, 
and  the  rake  have  since  admitted  him  ad  eundem. 
Mark  how  his  imaginative  sympathy  goes  beneath 
the  crust,  deeper  down  than  that  of  Burns,  and 
needs  no  plough  to  turn  up  the  object  of  its  muse. 
"It  is  pleasant  to  think  in  winter,  as  we  walk  over 
the  snowy  pastures,  of  those  happy  dreamers  that 
lie  under  the  sod,  of  dormice  and  all  that  race  of 
dormant  creatures  which  have  such  a  superfluity  of 


50  The  Round  Table 

life  enveloped  in  thick  folds  of  fur,  impervious  to 
the  cold."  "For  every  oak  and  birch,  too,  growing 
on  the  hilltop,  as  well  as  for  these  elms  and  willows, 
we  knew  that  there  was  a  graceful,  ethereal  and 
ideal  tree  making  down  from  the  roots,  and  some 
times  nature  in  high  tides  brings  her  mirror  to  its 
foot  and  makes  it  visible."  Only  some  word  were 
better  here  than  mirror  (which  is  true  to  the  fact, 
but  not  to  the  fancy, )  since  we  could  not  see  through 
that.  Leigh  Hunt  represents  a  colloquy  between 
man  and  fish,  in  which  both  maintain  their  ortho 
doxy  so  rigidly  that  neither  is  able  to  comprehend 
or  tolerate  the  other.  Mr.  Thoreau  flounders  in 
no  such  shallows.  He  is  wiser,  or  his  memory  is 
better,  and  can  re-create  the  sensations  of  that  part 
of  his  embryonic  life  which  he  passed  as  a  fish.  We 
know  nothing  more  thoroughly  charming  than  his 
description  of  twilight  at  the  river's  bottom. 

"The  light  gradually  forsook  the  deep  water,  as 
well  as  the  deeper  air,  and  the  gloaming  came  to 
the  fishes  as  well  as  to  us,  and  more  dim  and  gloomy 
to  them,  whose  day  is  perpetual  twilight,  though 
sufficiently  bright  for  their  weak  and  watery  eyes. 
Vespers  had  already  rung  in  many  a  dim  and  wat 
ery  chapel  down  below,  where  the  shadows  of  the 
weeds  were  extended  in  length  over  the  sandy 
floor.  The  vespertinal  pout  had  already  begun  to 
flit  on  leathern  fin,  and  the  finny  gossips  withdrew 
from  the  fluvial  streets  to  creeks  and  coves,  and 
other  private  haunts,  excepting  a  few  of  stronger 
fin,  which  anchored  in  the  stream,  stemming  the 
tide  even  in  their  dreams.  Meanwhile,  like  a  dark 


Thoreau  51 

evening  cloud,  we  were  wafted  over  the  cope  of 
their  sky,  deepening  the  shadows  on  their  deluged 
fields." 

One  would  say  this  was  the  work  of  some  bream 
Homer.  Melville's  pictures  of  life  in  Typee  have 
no  attraction  beside  it.  Truly  we  could  don  scales, 
pectorals,  dorsals,  and  anals,  (critics  are  already 
cold-blooded,)  to  stroll  with  our  dumb  love,  fin  in 
fin,  through  the  Rialto  of  this  subfluvial  Venice. 
The  Complete  Angler,  indeed!  Walton  had  but 
an  extraqueous  and  coquine  intimacy  with  the  fishes 
compared  with  this.  His  tench  and  dace  are  but 
the  poor  transported  convicts  of  the  frying-pan. 

There  was  a  time  when  Musketaquid  and  Merri- 
mack  flowed  down  from  the  Unknown.  The  ad 
venturer  wist  not  what  fair  reaches  stretched  before 
him,,  or  what  new  dusky  peoples  the  next  bend 
would  discover.  Surveyor  and  map  have  done 
what  they  could  to  rob  them  of  their  charm  of  un 
expectedness.  The  urns  of  the  old  river-gods  have 
been  twitched  from  under  their  arms  and  set  up  on 
the  museum-shelf,  or,  worse  yet,  they  serve  to  boil 
the  manufacturer's  plum-porridge.  But  Mr. 
Thoreau  with  the  touch  of  his  oar  conjures  back  as 
much  as  may  be  of  the  old  enchantment.  His  map 
extends  to  the  bed  of  the  river,  and  he  makes  ex 
cursions  into  finland,  penetrating  among  the  scaly 
tribes  without  an  angle.  He  is  the  true  cosmopoli 
tan  or  citizen  of  the  Beautiful.  He  is  thoroughly 
impartial — Tros,  Tyriusve — a  lichen  or  a  man,  it  is 
all  one,  he  looks  on  both  with  equal  eyes.  We  are 
at  a  loss  where  to  class  him.  He  might  be  Mr. 


52  The  Round  Table 

Bird,  Mr.  Fish,  Mr.  Rivers,  Mr.  Brook,  Mr.  Wood, 
[Mr.  Stone,  or  Mr.  Flower,  as  well  as  Mr.  Thoreau. 
His  work  has  this  additional  argument  for  fresh 
ness,  the  birds,  beasts,  fishes,  trees,  and  plants  hav 
ing  this  advantage,  that  none  has  hitherto  gone 
among  them  in  the  missionary  line.  They  are 
trapped  for  their  furs,  shot  and  speared  for  their 
flesh,  hewn  for  their  timber,  and  grubbed  for  In 
dian  Vegetable  Pills,  but  they  remain  yet  happily 
unconverted  in  primitive  heathendom.  They  take 
neither  rum  nor  gunpowder  in  the  natural  way,  and 
pay  tithes  without  being  Judaized.  Mr.  Thoreau 
goes  among  them  neither  as  hunter  nor  propagan 
dist.  He  makes  a  few  advances  to  them  in  the 
way  of  Boodhism,  but  gives  no  list  of  catechu 
mens,  though  flowers  would  seem  to  be  the  natural 
followers  of  that  prophet. 

In  truth,  Mr.  Thoreau  himself  might  absorb  the 
forces  of  the  entire  alphabetic  sanctity  of  the  A.B.- 
C.F.M.,  persisting  as  he  does  in  a  fine,  intelli 
gent  paganism.  We  need  no  more  go  to  the  un 
derworld  to  converse  with  shadows  of  old  philoso 
phers.  Here  we  have  the  Academy  brought  to  our 
doors,  and  our  modern  world  criticised  from  be 
neath  the  shelter  of  the  Portico.  Were  we  writ 
ing  commjendatory  verses  after  the  old  style,  to  be 
prefixed  to  this  volume,  we  should  begin  somewhat 
thus : — 

"If  the   ancient,  mystique,   antifabian 
Was  (so  he  claimed)  of  them  that  Troy  town  wan 
Before  he  was  born;  even  so  his  soul  we  see 
(Time's  ocean  underpast)   revive  in  thee, 


Thoreau  53 

As,  diving  nigh  to  Elis,  Arethuse 

Comes  up  to  loose  her  zone  by  Syracuse." 

The  great  charm  of  Mr.  Thoreau's  book  seems  to 
be,  that  its  being  a  book  at  all  is  a  happy  fortuity. 
The  door  of  the  portfolio-cage  has  been  left  open, 
and  the  thoughts  have  flown  out  of  themselves. 
The  paper  and  types  are  only  accidents.  The  page 
is  confidential  like  a  diary.  Pepys  is  not  more 
minute,  more  pleasantly  unconscious.  It  is  like  a 
book  dug  up,  that  has  no  date  to  assign  it  a  spe 
cial  contemporaneousness,  and  no  name  of  author. 
It  has  been  written  with  no  uncomfortable  sense  of 
a  public  looking  over  the  shoulder.  And  the  au 
thor  is  the  least  ingredient  in  it,  too.  All  which  I 
saw  and  part  of  which  I  was,  would  be  an  apt  motto 
for  the  better  portions  of  the  volume :  a  part,  more 
over,  just  as  the  river,  the  trees,  and  the  fishes  are. 
Generally  he  holds  a  very  smooth  mirror  up  to  na 
ture,  and  if,  now  and  then,  he  shows  us  his  own 
features  in  the  glass,  when  we  had  rather  look  at 
something  else,  it  is  as  a  piece  of  nature,  and  we 
must  forgive  him  if  he  allow  it  a  too  usurping  po 
sition  in  the  landscape.  He  looks  at  the  country 
sometimes  (as  painters  advise)  through  the  trium 
phal  arch  of  his  own  legs,  and,  though  the  upside- 
downness  of  the  prospect  has  its  own  charm  of  un- 
assuetude,  the  arch  itself  is  not  the  most  grace 
ful. 

So  far  of  the  manner  of  the  book,  now  of  the 
book  itself.  It  professes  to  be  the  journal  of  a 
week  on  Concord  and  Merrimack  Rivers.  We 
must  have  our  libraries  enlarged,  if  Mr.  Thoreau 


54  The  Round  Table 

intend  to  complete  his  autobiography  on  this  scale 
— four  hundred  and  thirteen  pages  to  a  sennight! 
He  begins  honestly  enough  as  the  Boswell  of  Mus- 
ketaquid  and  Merrimack.  It  was  a  fine  subject 
and  a  new  one.  We  are  curious  to  know  somewhat 
of  the  private  and  interior  life  of  two  such  promi 
nent  and  oldest  inhabitants.  Musketaquid  saw  the 
tremulous  match  half-doubtingly  touched  to  the 
revolutionary  train.  The  blood  of  Captain  Lin 
coln  and  his  drummer  must  have  dribbled  through 
the  loose  planks  of  the  bridge  for  Musketaquid  to 
carry  down  to  Merrimack,  that  he  in  turn  might 
mingle  it  with  the  sea.  Merrimack  is  a  drudge 
now,  grinding  for  the  Philistines,  who  takes  re 
peated  dammings  without  resentment,  and  walks 
in  no  procession  for  higher  wages.  But  its  waters 
remember  the  Redman,  and  before  the  Redman. 
They  knew  the  first  mammoth  as  a  calf,  and  him 
a  mere  parvenu  and  modern.  Even  to  the  saurians 
they  could  say — we  remember  your  grandfather. 

Much  information  and  entertainment  were  to  be 
pumped  out  of  individuals  like  these,  and  the  pump 
does  not  suck  in  Mr.  Thoreau's  hands.  As  long  as 
he  continues  an  honest  Boswell,  his  book  is  delight 
ful,  but  sometimes  he  serves  his  two  rivers  as  Haz- 
litt  did  Northcote,  and  makes  them  run  Thoreau  or 
Emerson,  or,  indeed,  anything  but  their  own  trans 
parent  element.  What,  for  instance,  have  Con 
cord  or  Merrimack  to  do  with  Boodh,  themselves 
professors  of  an  elder  and  to  them  wholly  suffi 
cient  religion,  namely,  the  willing  subjects  of  wa 
tery  laws,  to  seek  their  ocean?  We  have  digressions 


Thoreau  55 

on  Boodh,  on  Anacreon,  (with  translations  hardly 
so  good  as  Cowley,)  on  Persius,  on  Friendship,  and 
we  know  not  what.  We  come  upon  them  like 
snags,  jolting  us  headforemost  out  of  our  places 
as  we  are  rowing  placidly  up  stream  or  drifting 
down.  Mr.  Thoreau  becomes  so  absorbed  in  these 
discussions,  that  he  seems,  as  it  were,  to  catch  a 
crab,  and  disappears  uncomfortably  from  his  seat 
at  the  bow-oar.  We  could  forgive  them  all,  espe 
cially  that  on  Books,  and  that  on  Friendship, 
(which  is  worthy  of  one  who  has  so  long  com- 
m'erced  with  Nature  and  with  Emerson,)  we  could 
welcome  them  all,  were  they  put  by  themselves  at 
the  end  of  the  book.  But  as  it  is,  they  are  out  of 
proportion  and  out  of  place,  and  mar  our  Merri- 
macking  dreadfully.  We  were  bid  to  a  river- 
party,  not  to  be  preached  at.  They  thrust  them 
selves  obtrusively  out  of  the  narrative,  like  those 
quarries  of  red  glass  which  the  Bowery  dandies 
(emulous  of  Sisyphus)  push  laboriously  before 
them  as  breast-pins. 

Before  we  get  through  the  book,  we  begin  to 
feel  as  if  the  author  had  used  the  term  week,  as 
the  Jews  did  the  number  forty,  for  an  indefinable 
measure  of  time.  It  is  quite  evident  that  we  have 
something  more  than  a  transcript  of  his  fluviatile 
experiences.  The  leaves  of  his  portfolio  and  river- 
journal  seem  to  have  been  shuffled  together  with  a 
trustful  dependence  on  some  overruling  printer- 
providence.  We  trace  the  lines  of  successive  de 
posits  as  plainly  as  on  the  sides  of  a  deep  cut,  or 
rather  on  those  of  a  trench  carried  through  made- 


56  The  Round  Table 

land  in  the  city,  where  choiceness  of  material  has 
been  of  less  import  than  suitableness  to  fill  up,  and 
where  plaster  and  broken  bricks  from  old  build 
ings,  oyster-shells,  and  dock  mud  have  been  shot 
pellmell  together.  Yet  we  must  allow  that  Mr. 
Thoreau's  materials  are  precious,  too.  His  plaster 
has  bits  of  ancient  symbols  painted  on  it,  his  bricks 
are  stamped  with  mystic  sentences,  his  shells  are 
of  pearl-oysters,  and  his  mud  from  the  Sacra 
mento. 

"Give  me  a  sentence,"  prays  Mr.  Thoreau 
bravely,  "which  no  intelligence  can  understand!" 
— and  we  think  that  the  kind  gods  have  nodded. 
There  are  some  of  his  utterances  which  have  foiled 
us,  and  we  belong  to  that  class  of  beings  which  he 
thus  reproachfully  stigmatizes  as  intelligences. 
We  think  it  must  be  this  taste  that  makes  him  so 
fond  of  the  Hindoo  philosophy,  which  would 
seem  admirably  suited  to  men,  if  men  were  only 
oysters.  Or  is  it  merely  because,  as  he  naively 
confesses  in  another  place,  "his  soul  is  of  a  bright 
invisible  green?"  We  would  recommend  to  Mr. 
Thoreau  some  of  the  Welsh  sacred  poetry.  Many 
of  the  Triads  hold  an  infinite  deal  of  nothing,  es 
pecially  after  the  bottoms  have  been  knocked  out 
of  them  by  translation.  But  it  seems  ungrateful 
to  find  fault  with  a  book  which  has  given  us  so 
much  pleasure.  We  have  eaten  salt  (Attic,  too,) 
with  Mr.  Thoreau.  It  is  the  hospitality  and  not 
the  fare  which  carries  a  benediction  with  it,  and 
it  is  a  sort  of  ill  breeding  to  report  any  oddity  in 
the  viands.  His  feast  is  here  and  there  a  little 


Thoreau  5? 

savage,  (indeed,  he  professes  himself  a  kind  of 
volunteer  Redman,)  and  we  must  make  out  with 
the  fruits,  merely  giving  a  sidelong  glance  at  the 
baked  dog  and  pickled  missionary,  and  leaving 
them  in  grateful  silence. 

We  wish  the  General  Court  had  been  wise 
enough  to  have  appointed  our  author  to  make  the 
report  on  the  Ichthyology  of  Massachusetts. 
Then,  indeed,  would  the  people  of  the  state  have 
known  something  of  their  aquicolal  fellow-citizens. 
Mr.  Thoreau  handles  them  as  if  he  loved  them,  as 
old  Izaak  recommends  us  to  do  with  a  worm  in 
impaling  it.  He  is  the  very  Asmodeus  of  their 
private  life.  He  unroofs  their  dwellings  and 
makes  us  familiar  with  their  loves  and  sorrows. 
He  seems  to  suffer  a  sea-change,  like  the  Scotch 
peasant  who  was  carried  down  among  the  seals  in 
the  capacity  of  family  physician.  He  balances 
himself  with  them  under  the  domestic  lily-pad, 
takes  a  family-bite  with  them,  is  made  the  confi 
dant  of  their  courtships,  and  is  an  honored  guest 
at  the  wedding-feast.  He  has  doubtless  seen  a 
pickerel  crossed  in  love,  a  perch  Othello,  a  bream 
the  victim  of  an  unappreciated  idiosyncrasy,  or  a 
minnow;  with  a  mission.  He  goes  far  to  convince 
us  of  what  we  have  before  suspected,  that  the 
fishes  are  the  highest  of  organizations.  The  na 
tives  of  that  more  solid  atmosphere,  they  are  not 
subject  to  wind  or  rain,  they  have  been  guilty  of 
no  Promethean  rape,  they  have  bitten  no  apple. 
They  build  no  fences,  holding  their  watery  inheri 
tance  undivided.  Beyond  all  other  living  things 


58  The  Round  Table 

they  mind  their  own  business.  They  have  not 
degenerated  to  the  necessity  of  reform,  swallowing 
no  social  pills,  but  living  quietly  on  each  other  in 
a  true  primitive  community.  They  are  vexed 
with  no  theories  of  the  currency  which  go  deeper 
than  the  Newfoundland  Banks.  Nimium  for- 
tunati!  We  wish  Mr.  Thoreau  would  undertake 
a  report  upon  them  as  a  private  enterprise.  It 
would  be  the  most  delightful  book  of  natural  his 
tory  extant. 

Mr.  Thoreau's  volume  is  the  more  pleasant  that 
with  all  its  fresh  smell  of  the  woods,  it  is  yet  the 
work  of  a  bookish  man.  We  not  only  hear  the 
laugh  of  the  flicker,  and  the  watchman's  rattle  of 
the  red  squirrel,  but  the  voices  of  poets  and  philos 
ophers,  old  and  new.  There  is  no  more  reason  why 
an  author  should  reflect  trees  and  mountains  than 
books,  which,  if  they  are  in  any  sense  real,  are  as 
good  parts  of  nature  as  any  other  kind  of  growth. 
We  confess  that  there  is  a  certain  charm  for  us 
even  about  a  fool  who  has  read  myriads  of  books. 
There  is  an  undefinable  atmosphere  around  him, 
as  of  distant  lands  around  a  great  traveler,  and  of 
distant  years  around  very  old  men.  But  we  think 
that  Mr.  Thoreau  sometimes  makes  a  bad  use  of 
his  books.  Better  things  can  be  got  out  of  Her 
bert  and  Vaughan  and  Donne  than  the  art  of  mak 
ing  bad  verses.  There  is  no  harm  in  good  writing, 
nor  do  wisdom  and  philosophy  prefer  crambo. 
Mr.  Thoreau  never  learned  bad  rhyming  of  the 
river  and  the  sky.  He  is  the  more  culpable  as  he 
has  shown  that  he  can  write  poetry  at  once  melodi- 


Thoreau  59 

ous  and  distinct,  with  rare  delicacy  of  thought  and 
feeling. 

"My  life  is  like  a  stroll  upon  the  beach, 
As  near  the  ocean's  edge  as  I  can  go, 
My  tardy  steps  its  waves  sometimes  o'erreach, 
Sometimes  I  stay  to  let  them  overflow. 

"My  sole  employment  't  is,  and  scrupulous  care, 
To  place  my  gains  beyond  the  reach  of  tides, 
Each  smoother  pebble,  and  each  shell  more  rare, 
Which  ocean  kindly  to  my  hand  confides. 

"I  have  but  few  companions  on  the  shore, 

They  scorn  the  strand  who  sail  upon  the  sea, 
Yet  oft  I  think  the  ocean  they've  sailed  o'er 
Is  deeper  known  upon  the  strand  to  me. 

"The  middle  sea  contains  no  crimson  dulse, 

Its  deeper  waves  cast  up  no  pearls  to  view, 
Along  the  shore  my  hand  is  on  its  pulse, 

And  I  converse  with  many  a  shipwrecked  crew." 

If  Mr.  Emerson  choose  to  leave  some  hard  nuts 
for  posterity  to  crack,  he  can  perhaps  afford  it  as 
well  as  any.  We  counsel  Mr.  Thoreau,  in  his  own 
words,  to  take  his  hat  and  come  out  of  that.  If 
he  prefer  to  put  peas  in  his  shoes  when  he  makes 
private  poetical  excursions,  it  is  nobody's  affair. 
But  if  the  public  are  to  go  along  with  him,  they 
will  find  some  way  to  boil  theirs. 

We  think  that  Mr.  Thoreau,  like  most  solitary 
men,  exaggerates  the  importance  of  his  own 
thoughts.  The  "I"  occasionally  stretches  up  tall 
as  Pompey's  pillar  over  a  somewhat  flat  and  sandy 
expanse.  But  this  has  its  counterbalancing  ad- 


60  The  Round  Table 

vantage,  that  it  leads  him  to  secure  many  a  fancy 
and  feeling  which  would  flit  by  most  men  unno 
ticed.  The  little  confidences  of  nature  which  pass 
his  neighbors  as  the  news  slips  through  the  grasp 
of  birds  perched  upon  the  telegraphic  wires,  he 
receives  as  they  were  personal  messages  from  a 
mistress.  Yet  the  book  is  not  solely  excellent  as 
a  Talbotype  of  natural  scenery.  It  abounds  in 
fine  thoughts,  and  there  is  many  a  critical  obiter 
dictum  which  is  good  law,  as  what  he  says  of 
Raleigh's  style. 

"Sir  Walter  Raleigh  might  well  be  studied  if 
only  for  the  excellence  of  his  style,  for  he  is  re 
markable  in  the  midst  of  so  many  masters.  There 
is  a  natural  emphasis  in  his  style,  like  a  man's 
tread,  and  a  breathing  space  between  the  sentences, 
which  the  best  of  modern  writing  does  not  fur 
nish.  His  chapters  are  like  English  parks,  or  say 
rather  like  a  western  forest,  where  the  larger 
growth  keeps  down  the  underwood,  and  one  may 
ride  on  horseback  through  the  openings." 

Since  we  have  found  fault  with  some  of  what 
we  may  be  allowed  to  call  the  worsification,  we 
should  say  that  the  prose  work  is  done  conscien 
tiously  and  neatly.  The  style  is  compact  and  the 
language  has  an  antique  purity  like  wine  grown 
colorless  with  age.  There  are  passages  of  a 
genial  humor  interspersed  at  fit  intervals,  and  we 
close  our  article  with  one  of  them  by  way  of  grace. 
It  is  a  sketch  which  would  have  delighted  Lamb. 

"I  can  just  remember  an  old  brown-coated  man 
who  was  the  Walton  of  this  stream,  who  had  come 


Tkoreau  61 

over  from  Newcastle,  England,  with  his  son,  the 
latter  a  stout  and  hearty  man  who  had  lifted  an 
anchor  in  his  day.  A  straight  old  man  he  was 
who  took  his  way  in  silence  through  the  meadows, 
having  passed  the  period  of  communication  with 
his  fellows;  his  old  experienced  coat  hanging  long 
and  straight  and  hrown  as  the  yellow  pine  bark, 
glittering  with  so  much  smothered  sunlight,  if  you 
stood  near  enough,  no  work  of  art  but  naturalized 
at  length.  I  often  discovered  him  unexpectedly 
amid  the  pads  and  the  gray  willows  when  he 
moved,  fishing  in  some  old  country  method, — for 
youth  and  age  then  went  a  fishing  together, — full 
of  incommunicable  thoughts,  perchance  about  his 
own  Tyne  and  Northumberland.  He  was  always 
to  be  seen  in  serene  afternoons  haunting  the  river, 
and  almost  rustling  with  the  sedge ;  so  many  sunny 
hours  in  an  old  man's  life,  entrapping  silly  fish, 
almost  groWn  to  be  the  sun's  familiar;  what  need 
had  he  of  hat  or  raiment  any,  having  served  out 
his  time,  and  seen  through  such  thin  disguises?  I 
have  seen  how  his  coeval  fates  rewarded  him  with 
the  yellow  perch,  and  yet  I  thought  his  luck  was 
not  in  proportion  to  his  years;  and  I  have  seen 
when,  with  slow  steps  and  weighed  down  with  aged 
thoughts,  he  disappeared  with  his  fish  under  his 
low-roofed  house  on  the  skirts  of  the  village.  I 
think  nobody  else  saw  him;  nobody  else  remem 
bers  him  now,  for  he  soon  after  died,  and  migrated 
to  new  Tyne  streams.  His  fishing  was  not  a 
sport,  nor  solely  a  means  of  subsistence,  but  a  sort 
of  solemn  sacrament  and  withdrawal  from  the 
world,  just  as  the  aged  read  their  bibles." 


ELSIE  VENNER" 


"ELSIE  VENNER"  * 

ENGLISH  literature  numbers  among  its 
more    or    less    distinguished    authors    a 
goodly      number      of      physicians.     Sir 
Thomas   Browne  was,   perhaps,  the  last 
of  the  great  writers  of  English  prose  whose  mind 
and    style   were    impregnated    with    imagination. 
He  wrote  poetry  without  meaning  it,  as  many  of 
his  brother  doctors  have  meant  to  write  poetry 
without  doing  it,  in  the  classic  style  of 

"Inoculation,  heavenly  maid,  descend!" 

Garth's  "Dispensary"  was  long  ago  as  fairly 
buried  as  any  of  his  patients;  and  Armstrong's 
"Health"  enjoys  the  dreary  immortality  of  being 
preserved  in  the  collections,  like  one  of  those  queer 
things  they  show  you  in  a  glass  jar  at  the  anatom 
ical  museums.  Arbuthnot,  a  truly  genial  humor 
ist,  has  hardly  had  justice  done  him.  People 
laugh  over  his  fun  in  the  "Memoirs  of  Scriblerus," 
and  are  commonly  satisfied  to  think  it  Pope's. 
Smollett  insured  his  literary  life  in  "Humphrey 
Clinker";  and  we  suppose  his  Continuation  of 
Hume  is  still  one  of  the  pills  which  ingenuous 
youth  is  expected  to  gulp  before  it  is  strong 
enough  to  resist.  Goldsmith's  fame  has  steadily 
gained;  and  so  has  that  of  Keats,  whom  we  may 
also  fairly  reckon  in  our  list,  though  he  remained 

i  Elsie    Venner.    A    Romance   of  Destiny.     By   OLIVER  WEN 
DELL   HOLMES.    2?  vols.    Boston:  Ticknor  &  Fields.     1861. 

65 


66  The  Bound  Table 

harmless,  having  never  taken  a  degree.  On  the 
whole,  the  proportion  of  doctors  who  have  posi 
tively  succeeded  in  our  literature  is  a  large  one, 
and  we  have  now  another  very  marked  and  beauti 
ful  case  in  Dr.  Holmes.  Since  Arbuthnot,  the 
profession  has  produced  no  such  wit;  since  Gold 
smith,  no  author  so  successful. 

Five  years  ago 2  it  would  have  been  only  Dr. 
Holmes's  intimate  friends  that  would  have  consid 
ered  the  remarkable  success  he  has  achieved  not 
only  possible,  but  probable.  They  knew,  that,  if 
the  fitting  opportunity  should  only  come,  he  would 
soon  show  how?  much  stuff  he  had  in  him, — sterner 
stuff,  too,  than  the  world  had  supposed, — stuff 
not  merely  to  show  off  the  iris  of  a  brilliant  repu 
tation,  but  to  block  out  into  the  foundations  of  an 
enduring  fame.  It  seems  an  odd  thing  to  say  that 
Dr.  Holmes  had  suffered  by  having  given  proof  of 
too  much  wit;  but  it  is  undoubtedly  true.  People 
in  general  have  a  great  respect  for  those  who 
scare  them  or  make  them  cry,  but  are  apt  to  weigh 
lightly  one  who  amuses  them.  They  like  to  be 
tickled,  but  they  would  hardly  take  the  advice  of 
their  tickler  on  any  question  they  thought  serious. 
We  have  our  doubts  whether  the  majority  of  those 
who  make  up  what  is  called  "the  world"  are  fond 
of  wit.  It  rather  puts  them  out,  as  Nature  did 
Fuseli.  They  look  on  its  crinkling  play  as  men 
do  at  lightning;  and  while  they  grant  it  is  very 
fine,  are  teased  with  an  uncomfortable  wonder  as 
to  where  it  is  going  to  strike  next.  They  would 

2  Written  in  1861.— ED. 


"Elsie  Tenner"  67 

rather,  on  the  whole,  it  were  farther  off.  They 
like  well-established  jokes,  the  fine  old  smoked- 
herring  sort,  such  as  the  clown  offers  them  in  the 
circus,  warranted  never  to  spoil,  if  only  kept  dry 
enough.  Your  fresh  wit  demands  a  little  thought, 
perhaps,  or  at  least  a  kind  of  negative  wit,  in  the 
recipient.  It  is  an  active  meddlesome  quality, 
forever  putting  things  in  unexpected  and  some 
what  startling  relations  to  each  other;  and  such 
new  relations  are  as  unwelcome  to  the  ordinary 
mind  as  poor  relations  to  a  nouveau  riche.  Who 
wants  to  be  all  the  time  painfully  conceiving  of 
the  antipodes  walking  like  flies  on  the  ceiling? 
Yet  wit  is  related  to  some  of  the  profoundest 
qualities  of  the  intellect.  It  is  the  reasoning 
faculty  acting  per  saltum,  the  sense  of  analogy 
brought  to  a  focus;  it  is  generalization  in  a  flash, 
logic  by  the  electric  telegraph,  the  sense  of  like 
ness  in  unlikeness,  that  lies  at  the  root  of  all  dis 
coveries;  it  is  the  prose  imagination,  common- 
sense  at  fourth  proof.  All  this  is  no  reason  why 
the  world  should  like  it,  however;  and  we  fancy 
that  the  question,  Ridentem  dicere  verum  quid 
vet  at?  was  plaintively  put  in  the  primitive  tongue 
by  one  of  the  world's  gray  fathers  to  another  with 
out  producing  the  slightest  conviction.  Of  course, 
there  must  be  some  reason  for  this  suspicion  of 
wit,  as  there  is  for  most  of  the  world's  deep-rooted 
prejudices.  There  is  a  kind  of  surface-wit  that 
is  commonly  the  sign  of  a  light  and  shallow  nature. 
It  becomes  habitual  persiflage,  incapable  of  taking 
a  deliberate  and  serious  view  of  anything,  or  of 


68  The  Round  Table 

conceiving  the  solemnities  that  environ  life.  This 
has  made  men  distrustful  of  all  laughers ;  and  they 
are  apt  to  confound  in  one  sweeping  condemna 
tion  with  this  that  humor  whose  base  is  seriousness, 
and  which  is  generally  the  rebound  of  the  mind 
from  over-sad  contemplation.  They  do  not  see 
that  the  same  qualities  that  make  Shakspeare  the 
greatest  of  tragic  poets  make  him  also  the  deepest 
of  humorists. 

Dr.  Holmes  was  already  an  author  of  more  than 
a  quarter  of  a  century's  standing,  and  was  looked 
on  by  most  people  as  an  amusing  writer  merely. 
He  protested  playfully  and  pointedly  against  this, 
once  or  twice;  but,  as  he  could  not  help  being 
witty,  whether  he  would  or  no,  his  audience  laughed 
and  took  the  protest  as  part  of  the  joke.  He  felt 
that  he  was  worth  a  great  deal  more  than  he  was 
vulgarly  rated  at,  and  perhaps  chafed  a  little;  but 
his  opportunity  had  not  come.  With  the  first 
number  of  the  "Atlantic"  it  came  at  last,  and  won 
derfully  he  profited  by  it.  The  public  were  first 
delighted,  and  then  astonished.  So  much  wit, 
wisdom,  pathos,  and  universal  Catharine-wheeling 
of  fun  and  fancy  was  unexampled.  "Why,  good 
gracious,"  cried  Madam  Grundy,  "we've  got  a 
genius  among  us  at  last!  I  always  knew  what  it 
would  come  to!"  "Got  a  fiddlestick!"  says  Mr. 
G. ;  "it's  only  rockets."  And  there  was  no  little 
watching  and  waiting  for  the  sticks  to  come  down. 
We  are  afraid  that  many  a  respectable  skeptic 
has  a  crick  in  his  neck  by  this  time;  for  we  are  of 
opinion  that  these  are  a  new  kind  of  rocket,  that 


"Elsie  Venner"  69 

go  without  sticks,  and  stay  up  against  all  laws  of 
gravity. 

We  expected  a  great  deal  from  Dr.  Holmes; 
we  thought  he  had  in  him  the  makings  of  the  best 
magazinist  in  the  country;  but  we  honestly  confess 
we  were  astonished.  We  remembered  the  proverb, 
"  'Tis  the  pace  that  kills,"  and  could  scarce  believe 
that  such  a  two-forty  gait  could  be  kept  up  through 
a  twelvemonth.  Such  wind  and  bottom  were  un 
precedented.  But  this  was  Eclipse  1  himself;  and 
he  came  in  as  fresh  as  a  May  morning,  ready  at  a 
month's  end  for  another  year's  run.  And  it  was 
not  merely  the  perennial  vivacity,  the  fun  shading 
down  to  seriousness,  and  the  seriousness  up  to  fun, 
in  perpetual  and  charming  vicissitude; — here  was 
the  man  of  culture,  of  scientific  training,  the  man 
who  had  thought  as  well  as  felt,  and  who  had  fixed 
purposes  and  sacred  convictions.  No,  the  Eclipse- 
comparison  is  too  trifling.  This  was  a  stout  ship 
under  press  of  canvas;  and  however  the  phosphor 
escent  star-foam  of  wit  and  fancy,  crowding  up 
under  her  bows  or  gliding  away  in  subdued  flashes 
of  sentiment  in  her  wake,  may  draw  the  eye,  yet 
she  has  an  errand  of  duty;  she  carries  a  precious 
freight,  she  steers  by  the  stars,  and  all  her  seem 
ingly  wanton  zigzags  bring  her  nearer  to  port. 

When  children  have  made  up  their  minds  to 
like  some  friend  of  the  family,  they  commonly 
besiege  him  for  a  story.  The  same  demand  is 
made  by  the  public  of  authors,  and  accordingly  it 
was  made  of  Dr.  Holmes.  The  odds  were  heavy 

i  A  famous  race-horse  at  the  time  this  article  was  written. — ED. 


70  The  Round  Table 

against  him;  but  here  again  he  triumphed.  Like 
a  good  Bostonian,  he  took  for  his  heroine  a 
schoolmaam,,  the  Puritan  Pallas  Athene  of  the 
American  Athens,  and  made  her  so  lovely  that 
everybody  was  looking  about  for  a  schoolmistress 
to  despair  after.  Generally,  the  best  work  in 
imaginative  literature  is  done  before  forty;  but 
Dr.  Holmes  should  seem  not  to  have  found  what 
a  Mariposa  grant  Nature  had  made  him  till  after 
fifty. 

There  is  no  need  of  our  analyzing  "Elsie  Ven- 
ner,"  for  all  our  readers  know  it  as  well  as  we  do. 
But  we  cannot  help  saying  that  Dr.  Holmes  has 
struck  a  new  vein  of  New-England  romance. 
The  story  is  really  a  romance,  and  the  character 
of  the  heroine  has  in  it  an  element  of  mystery; 
yet  the  materials  are  gathered  from  every-day 
New-England  life,  and  that  weird  borderland 
between  science  and  speculation  where  psychology 
and  physiology  exercise  mixed  jurisdiction,  and 
which  rims  New  England  as  it  does  all  other  lands. 
The  character  of  Elsie  is  exceptional,  but  not 
purely  ideal,  like  Christabel  and  Lamia.  In  Doc 
tor  Kittredge  and  his  "hired  man,"  and  in  the 
Principal  of  the  "Apollinean  Institoot,"  Dr. 
Holmes  has  shown  his  ability  to  draw  those  typical 
characters  that  represent  the  higher  and  lower 
grades  of  average  human  nature;  and  in  calling 
his  work  a  Romance  he  quietly  justifies  himself  for 
mingling  other  elements  in  the  composition  of 
Elsie  and  her  cousin.  Apart  from  the  merit  of 
the  book  as  a  story,  it  is  full  of  wit,  and  of  sound 


"Elsie  Fenner"       J,  71 

thought  sometimes  hiding  behind  a  mask  of  humor. 
Admirably  conceived  are  the  two  clergymen, 
gradually  changing  sides  almost  without  knowing 
it,  and  having  that  persuasion  of  consistency  which 
men  always  feel,  because  they  must  always  bring 
their  creed  into  some  sort  of  agreement  with  their 
dispositions. 

There  is  something  melancholy  in  the  fact,  that, 
the  moment  Dr.  Holmes  showed  that  he  felt  a 
deep  interest  in  the  great  questions  which  concern 
this  world  and  the  next,  and  proved  not  only  that 
he  believed  in  something,  but  thought  his  belief 
worth  standing  up  for,  the  cry  of  Infidel  should 
have  been  raised  against  him  by  people  who  believe 
in  nothing  but  an  authorized  version  of  Truth, 
they  themselves  being  the  censors.  For  our  own 
part,  we  do  not  like  the  smell  of  Smithfield, 
whether  it  be  Catholic  or  Protestant  that  is  burn 
ing  there;  though,  fortunately,  one  can  afford  to 
smile  at  the  Inquisition,  so  long  as  its  Acts  of 
Faith  are  confined  to  the  corners  of  sectarian 
newspapers.  But  Dr.  Holmes  can  well  afford  to 
possess  his  soul  in  patience.  The  Unitarian  John 
Milton  has  won  and  kept  quite  a  respectable  place 
in  literature,  though  he  was  once  forced  to  say, 
bitterly,  that  "new  Presbyter  was  only  old  Priest 
writ  large."  One  can  say  nowadays,  E  pur  si 
muove,  with  more  comfort  than  Galileo  could;  the 
world  does  move  forward,  and  we  see  no  great 
chance  for  any  ingenious  fellow-citizen  to  make 
his  fortune  by  a  "Yankee  Heretic-Baker,"  as 
there  might  have  been  two  centuries  ago. 


72  The  Round  Table 

Dr.  Holmes  has  proved  his  title  to  be  a  wit  in 
the  earlier  and  higher  sense  of  the  word,  when  it 
meant  a  man  of  genius,  a  player  upon  thoughts 
rather  than  words.  The  variety,  freshness,  and 
strength  which  he  has  lent  to  the  pages  of  the  "At 
lantic  Monthly"  during  the  last  three  years  seem 
to  demand  of  us  that  we  should  add  our  expression 
of  admiration  to  that  which  his  countrymen  have 
been  so  eager  and  unanimous  in  rendering. 


'THE  MARBLE  FAUN 


"THE  MARBLE  FAUN" 

IT  is,  we  believe,  more  than  thirty  years  since 
Mr.  Hawthorne's  first  appearance  as  an 
author;  it  is  twenty-three  since  he  gave  his 
first  collection  of  "Twice-told  Tales"  to  the 
world.  His  works  have  received  that  surest  war 
ranty  of  genius  and  originality  in  the  widening  of 
their  appreciation  downward  from  a  small  circle 
of  refined  admirers  and  critics,  till  it  embraced  the 
whole  community  of  readers.  With  just  enough 
encouragement  to  confirm  his  faith  in  his  own 
powers,  those  powers  had  time  to  ripen  and 
toughen  themselves  before  the  gales  of  popularity 
could  twist  them  from  the  balance  of  a  healthy 
and  normal  development.  Happy  the  author 
whose  earliest  works  are  read  and  understood  by 
the  lustre  thrown  back  upon  them  from  his  latest! 
For  then  we  receive  the  impression  of  continuity 
and  cumulation  of  power,  of  peculiarity  deepen 
ing  into  individuality,  of  promise  more  than  justi 
fied  in  the  keeping:  unhappy,  whose  autumn 
shows  only  the  aftermath  and  rowen  of  an  earlier 
harvest,  whose  would-be  replenishments  are  but 
thin  dilutions  of  his  fame! 

The  nineteenth  century  has  produced  no  more 
purely  original  writer  than  Mr.  Hawthorne.  A 
shallow  criticism  has  sometimes  fancied  a  resem- 

i  The  Marble  Fawn.    A  Romance  of  Monte  Beni.    By  NATHAN 
IEL  HAWTHORNE,    2  vols.    Boston:  Ticknor  &  Fields.    1860. 

75 


76  The  Round  Table 

blance  between  him  and  Poe.  But  it  seems  to  us 
that  the  difference  between  them  is  the  immeas 
urable  one  between  talent  carried  to  its  ultimate, 
and  genius, — between  a  masterly  adaptation  of 
the  world  of  sense  and  appearance  to  the  purposes 
of  Art,  and  a  so  thorough  conception  of  the  world 
of  moral  realities  that  Art  becomes  the  interpreter 
of  something  profounder  than  herself.  In  this 
respect  it  is  not  extravagant  to  say  that  Hawthorne 
has  something  of  kindred  with  Shakspeare.  But 
that  breadth  of  nature  which  made  Shakspeare 
incapable  of  alienation  from  common  human 
nature  and  actual  life  is  wanting  to  Hawthorne. 
He  is  rather  a  denizen  than  a  citizen  of  what  men 
call  the  world.  We  are  conscious  of  a  certain  re 
moteness  in  his  writings,  as  in  those  of  Donne,  but 
with  such  a  difference  that  we  should  call  the  one 
super-  and  the  other  subter-sensual.  Hawthorne 
is  psychological  and  metaphysical.  Had  he  been 
born  without  the  poetic  imagination,  he  would 
have  written  treatises  on  the  Origin  of  Evil.  He 
does  not  draw  characters,  but  rather  conceives 
them  and  then  shows  them  acted  upon  by  crime, 
passion,  or  circumstance,  as  if  the  element  of  Fate 
were  as  present  to  his  imagination  as  to  that  of  a 
Greek  dramatist.  Helen  we  know,  and  Antigone, 
and  Benedick,  and  Falstaff,  and  Miranda,  and 
Parson  Adams,  and  Major  Pendennis, — these 
people  have  walked  on  pavements  or  looked  out 
of  club-room  windows ;  but  what  are  these  idiosyn 
crasies  into  which  Mr.  Hawthorne  has  breathed 
a  necromantic  life,  and  which  he  has  endowed  with 


"The  Marble  Faun3'  77 

the  forms  and  attributes  of  men?  And  yet,  grant 
him  his  premises,  that  is,  let  him  once  get  his 
morbid  tendency,  whether  inherited  or  the  result 
of  special  experience,  either  incarnated  as  a  new 
man  or  usurping  all  the  faculties  of  one  already 
in  the  flesh,  and  it  is  marvelous  how  subtlely  and 
with  what  truth  to  as  much  of  human  nature  as  is 
included  in  a  diseased  consciousness  he  traces  all 
the  finest  nerves  of  impulse  and  motive,  how  he 
compels  every  trivial  circumstance  into  an  accom 
plice  of  his  art,  and  makes  the  sky  flame  with  fore 
boding  or  the  landscape  chill  and  darken  with 
remorse.  It  is  impossible  to  think  of  Hawthorne 
without  at  the  same  time  thinking  of  the  few  great 
masters  of  imaginative  composition;  his  works, 
only  not  abstract  because  he  has  the  genius  to  make 
them  ideal,  belong  not  specially  to  our  clime  or 
generation;  it  is  their  moral  purpose  alone,  and 
perhaps  their  sadness,  that  mark  him  as  the  son  of 
New  England  and  the  Puritans. 

It  is  comimonly  true  of  Hawthorne's  romances 
that  the  interest  centres  in  one  strongly  defined 
protagonist,  to  whom  the  other  characters  are 
accessory  and  subordinate, — perhaps  we  should 
rather  say  a  ruling  Idea,  of  which  all  the  charac 
ters  are  fragmentary  embodiments.  They  remind 
us  of  a  symphony  of  Beethoven's,  in  which,  though 
there  be  variety  of  parts,  yet  all  are  infused  with 
the  dominant  motive,  and  heighten  its  impression 
by  hints  and  far-away  suggestions  at  the  most  un 
expected  moment.  As  in  Rome  the  obelisks  are 
placed  at  points  toward  which  several  streets  con- 


78  The  Round  Table 

verge,  so  in  Mr.  Hawthorne's  stories  the  actors 
and  incidents  seem  but  vistas  through  which  we 
see  the  moral  from  different  points  of  view, — a 
moral  pointing  skyward  always,  but  inscribed  with 
hieroglyphs  mysteriously  suggestive,  whose  incite 
ment  to  conjecture,  while  they  baffle  it,  we  prefer 
to  any  prosaic  solution. 

Nothing  could  be  more  original  or  imaginative 
than  the  conception  of  the  character  of  Donatello 
in  Mr.  Hawthorne's  new  romance.  His  likeness 
to  the  lovely  statue  of  Praxiteles,  his  happy  animal 
temperament,  and  the  dim  legend  of  his  pedigree 
are  combined  with  wonderful  art  to  reconcile  us 
to  the  notion  of  a  Greek  myth  embodied  in  an 
Italian  of  the  nineteenth  century;  and  when  at 
length  a  soul  is  created  in  this  primeval  pagan, 
this  child  of  earth,  this  creature  of  mere  instinct, 
awakened  through  sin  to  a  conception  of  the  neces 
sity  of  atonement,  we  feel,  that,  while  we  looked  to 
be  entertained  with  the  airiest  of  fictions,  we  were 
dealing  with  the  most  august  truths  of  psychology, 
with  the  most  pregnant  facts  of  modern  history, 
and  studying  a  profound  parable  of  the  develop 
ment  of  the  Christian  Idea. 

Everything  suffers  a  sea-change  in  the  depths 
of  Mr.  Hawthorne's  mind,  gets  rimmed  with  an 
impalpable  fringe  of  melancholy  moss,  and  there 
is  a  tone  of  sadness  in  this  book  as  in  the  rest,  but 
it  does  not  leave  us  sad.  In  a  series  of  remarkable 
and  characteristic  works,  it  is  perhaps  the  most 
remarkable  and  characteristic.  If  you  had  picked 


"The  Marble  Faun39  79 

up  and  read  a  stray  leaf  of  it  anywhere,  you  would 
have  exclaimed,  "Hawthorne!" 

The  book  is  steeped  in  Italian  atmosphere. 
There  are  many  landscapes  in  it  full  of  breadth 
and  power,  and  criticisms  of  pictures  and  statues 
always  delicate,  often  profound.  In  the  Preface, 
Mr.  Hawthorne  pays  a  well-deserved  tribute  of 
admiration  to  several  of  our  sculptors,  especially 
to  Story  and  Akers.  The  hearty  enthusiasm  with 
which  he  elsewhere  speaks  of  the  former  artist's 
"Cleopatra"  is  no  surprise  to  Mr.  Story's  friends 
at  home,  though  hardly  less  gratifying  to  them 
than  it  must  be  to  the  sculptor  himself. 


70  The  Bound  Table 

against  him;  but  here  again  he  triumphed.  Like 
a  good  Bostonian,  he  took  for  his  heroine  a 
sclioolmaam,  the  Puritan  Pallas  Athene  of  the 
American  Athens,  and  made  her  so  lovely  that 
everybody  was  looking  about  for  a  schoolmistress 
to  despair  after.  Generally,  the  best  work  in 
imaginative  literature  is  done  before  forty;  but 
Dr.  Holmes  should  seem  not  to  have  found  what 
a  Mariposa  grant  Nature  had  made  him  till  after 
fifty. 

There  is  no  need  of  our  analyzing  "Elsie  Ven- 
ner,"  for  all  our  readers  know  it  as  well  as  we  do. 
But  we  cannot  help  saying  that  Dr.  Holmes  has 
struck  a  new  vein  of  New-England  romance. 
The  story  is  really  a  romance,  and  the  character 
of  the  heroine  has  in  it  an  element  of  mystery; 
yet  the  materials  are  gathered  from  every-day 
New-England  life,  and  that  weird  borderland 
between  science  and  speculation  where  psychology 
and  physiology  exercise  mixed  jurisdiction,  and 
which  rims  New  England  as  it  does  all  other  lands. 
The  character  of  Elsie  is  exceptional,  but  not 
purely  ideal,  like  Christabel  and  Lamia.  In  Doc 
tor  Kittredge  and  his  "hired  man,"  and  in  the 
Principal  of  the  "Apollinean  Institoot,"  Dr. 
Holmes  has  shown  his  ability  to  draw  those  typical 
characters  that  represent  the  higher  and  lower 
grades  of  average  human  nature;  and  in  calling 
his  work  a  Romance  he  quietly  justifies  himself  for 
mingling  other  elements  in  the  composition  of 
Elsie  and  her  cousin.  Apart  from  the  merit  of 
the  book  as  a  story,  it  is  full  of  wit,  and  of  sound 


"Elsie  Fenner"  71 

thought  sometimes  hiding  behind  a  mask  of  humor. 
Admirably  conceived  are  the  two  clergymen, 
gradually  changing  sides  almost  without  knowing 
it,  and  having  that  persuasion  of  consistency  which 
men  always  feel,  because  they  must  always  bring 
their  creed  into  some  sort  of  agreement  with  their 
dispositions. 

There  is  something  melancholy  in  the  fact,  that, 
the  moment  Dr.  Holmes  showed  that  he  felt  a 
deep  interest  in  the  great  questions  which  concern 
this  world  and  the  next,  and  proved  not  only  that 
he  believed  in  something,  but  thought  his  belief 
worth  standing  up  for,  the  cry  of  Infidel  should 
have  been  raised  against  him  by  people  who  believe 
in  nothing  but  an  authorized  version  of  Truth, 
they  themselves  being  the  censors.  For  our  own 
part,  we  do  not  like  the  smell  of  Smithfield, 
whether  it  be  Catholic  or  Protestant  that  is  burn 
ing  there;  though,  fortunately,  one  can  afford  to 
smile  at  the  Inquisition,  so  long  as  its  Acts  of 
Faith  are  confined  to  the  corners  of  sectarian 
newspapers.  But  Dr.  Holmes  can  well  afford  to 
possess  his  soul  in  patience.  The  Unitarian  John 
Milton  has  won  and  kept  quite  a  respectable  place 
in  literature,  though  he  was  once  forced  to  say, 
bitterly,  that  "new  Presbyter  was  only  old  Priest 
writ  large."  One  can  say  nowadays,  E  pur  si 
muove,  with  more  comfort  than  Galileo  could;  the 
world  does  move  forward,  and  we  see  no  great 
chance  for  any  ingenious  fellow-citizen  to  make 
his  fortune  by  a  "Yankee  Heretic-Baker,"  as 
there  might  have  been  two  centuries  ago. 


72  The  Round  Table 

Dr.  Holmes  has  proved  his  title  to  be  a  wit  in 
the  earlier  and  higher  sense  of  the  word,  when  it 
meant  a  man  of  genius,  a  player  upon  thoughts 
rather  than  words.  The  variety,  freshness,  and 
strength  which  he  has  lent  to  the  pages  of  the  "At 
lantic  Monthly"  during  the  last  three  years  seem 
to  demand  of  us  that  we  should  add  our  expression 
of  admiration  to  that  which  his  countrymen  have 
been  so  eager  and  unanimous  in  rendering. 


'THE  MARBLE  FAUN" 


"THE  MARBLE  FAUN" 

IT  is,  we  believe,  more  than  thirty  years  since 
Mr.  Hawthorne's  first  appearance  as  an 
author;  it  is  twenty-three  since  he  gave  his 
first  collection  of  "Twice-told  Tales"  to  the 
world.  His  works  have  received  that  surest  war 
ranty  of  genius  and  originality  in  the  widening  of 
their  appreciation  downward  from  a  small  circle 
of  refined  admirers  and  critics,  till  it  embraced  the 
whole  community  of  readers.  With  just  enough 
encouragement  to  confirm  his  faith  in  his  own 
powers,  those  powers  had  time  to  ripen  and 
toughen  themselves  before  the  gales  of  popularity 
could  twist  them  from  the  balance  of  a  healthy 
and  normal  development.  Happy  the  author 
whose  earliest  works  are  read  and  understood  by 
the  lustre  thrown  back  upon  them  from  his  latest! 
For  then  we  receive  the  impression  of  continuity 
and  cumulation  of  power,  of  peculiarity  deepen 
ing  into  individuality,  of  promise  more  than  justi 
fied  in  the  keeping:  unhappy,  whose  autumn 
shows  only  the  aftermath  and  rowen  of  an  earlier 
harvest,  whose  would-be  replenishments  are  but 
thin  dilutions  of  his  fame! 

The  nineteenth  century  has  produced  no  more 
purely  original  writer  than  Mr.  Hawthorne.  A 
shallow  criticism  has  sometimes  fancied  a  resem- 

i  The  Marble  Faun.    A  Romance  of  Monte  Beni.    By  NATHAN 
IEL  HAWTHORNE.    2  vols.    Boston:  Ticknor  &  Fields.    1860. 

75 


76  The  Round  Table 

blance  between  him  and  Poe.  But  it  seems  to  us 
that  the  difference  between  them  is  the  immeas 
urable  one  between  talent  carried  to  its  ultimate, 
and  genius, — between  a  masterly  adaptation  of 
the  world  of  sense  and  appearance  to  the  purposes 
of  Art,  and  a  so  thorough  conception  of  the  world 
of  moral  realities  that  Art  becomes  the  interpreter 
of  something  profounder  than  herself.  In  this 
respect  it  is  not  extravagant  to  say  that  Hawthorne 
has  something  of  kindred  with  Shakspeare.  But 
that  breadth  of  nature  which  made  Shakspeare 
incapable  of  alienation  from  common  human 
nature  and  actual  life  is  wanting  to  Hawthorne. 
He  is  rather  a  denizen  than  a  citizen  of  what  men 
call  the  world.  We  are  conscious  of  a  certain  re 
moteness  in  his  writings,  as  in  those  of  Donne,  but 
with  such  a  difference  that  we  should  call  the  one 
super-  and  the  other  subter-sensual.  Hawthorne 
is  psychological  and  metaphysical.  Had  he  been 
born  without  the  poetic  imagination,  he  would 
have  written  treatises  on  the  Origin  of  Evil.  He 
does  not  draw  characters,  but  rather  conceives 
them  and  then  shows  them  acted  upon  by  crime, 
passion,  or  circumstance,  as  if  the  element  of  Fate 
were  as  present  to  his  imagination  as  to  that  of  a 
Greek  dramatist.  Helen  we  know,  and  Antigone, 
and  Benedick,  and  Falstaff,  and  Miranda,  and 
Parson  Adams,  and  Major  Pendennis, — these 
people  have  wralked  on  pavements  or  looked  out 
of  club-room  windows;  but  what  are  these  idiosyn 
crasies  into  which  Mr.  Hawthorne  has  breathed 
a  necromantic  life,  and  which  he  has  endowed  with 


"The  Marble  Faun"  77 

the  forms  and  attributes  of  men?  And  yet,  grant 
him  his  premises,  that  is,  let  him  once  get  his 
morbid  tendency,  whether  inherited  or  the  result 
of  special  experience,  either  incarnated  as  a  new 
man  or  usurping  all  the  faculties  of  one  already 
in  the  flesh,  and  it  is  marvelous  how  subtlely  and 
with  what  truth  to  as  much  of  human  nature  as  is 
included  in  a  diseased  consciousness  he  traces  all 
the  finest  nerves  of  impulse  and  motive,  how  he 
compels  every  trivial  circumstance  into  an  accom 
plice  of  his  art,  and  makes  the  sky  flame  with  fore 
boding  or  the  landscape  chill  and  darken  with 
remorse.  It  is  impossible  to  think  of  Hawthorne 
without  at  the  same  time  thinking  of  the  few  great 
masters  of  imaginative  composition;  his  works, 
only  not  abstract  because  he  has  the  genius  to  make 
them  ideal,  belong  not  specially  to  our  clime  or 
generation;  it  is  their  moral  purpose  alone,  and 
perhaps  their  sadness,  that  mark  him  as  the  son  of 
New  England  and  the  Puritans. 

It  is  commonly  true  of  Hawthorne's  romances 
that  the  interest  centres  in  one  strongly  defined 
protagonist,  to  whom  the  other  characters  are 
accessory  and  subordinate, — perhaps  we  should 
rather  say  a  ruling  Idea,  of  which  all  the  charac 
ters  are  fragmentary  embodiments.  They  remind 
us  of  a  symphony  of  Beethoven's,  in  which,  though 
there  be  variety  of  parts,  yet  all  are  infused  with 
the  dominant  motive,  and  heighten  its  impression 
by  hints  and  far-away  suggestions  at  the  most  un 
expected  moment.  As  in  Rome  the  obelisks  are 
placed  at  points  toward  which  several  streets  con- 


78  The  Round  Table 

verge,  so  in  Mr.  Hawthorne's  stories  the  actors 
and  incidents  seem  but  vistas  through  which  we 
see  the  moral  from  different  points  of  view, — a 
moral  pointing  skyward  always,  but  inscribed  with 
hieroglyphs  mysteriously  suggestive,  whose  incite 
ment  to  conjecture,  while  they  baffle  it,  we  prefer 
to  any  prosaic  solution. 

Nothing  could  be  more  original  or  imaginative 
than  the  conception  of  the  character  of  Donatello 
in  Mr.  Hawthorne's  new  romance.  His  likeness 
to  the  lovely  statue  of  Praxiteles,  his  happy  animal 
temperament,  and  the  dim  legend  of  his  pedigree 
are  combined  with  wonderful  art  to  reconcile  us 
to  the  notion  of  a  Greek  myth  embodied  in  an 
Italian  of  the  nineteenth  century;  and  when  at 
length  a  soul  is  created  in  this  primeval  pagan, 
this  child  of  earth,  this  creature  of  mere  instinct, 
awakened  through  sin  to  a  conception  of  the  neces 
sity  of  atonement,  we  feel,  that,  while  we  looked  to 
be  entertained  with  the  airiest  of  fictions,  we  were 
dealing  with  the  most  august  truths  of  psychology, 
with  the  most  pregnant  facts  of  modern  history, 
and  studying  a  profound  parable  of  the  develop 
ment  of  the  Christian  Idea. 

Everything  suffers  a  sea-change  in  the  depths 
of  Mr.  Hawthorne's  mind,  gets  rimmed  with  an 
impalpable  fringe  of  melancholy  moss,  and  there 
is  a  tone  of  sadness  in  this  book  as  in  the  rest,  but 
it  does  not  leave  us  sad.  In  a  series  of  remarkable 
and  characteristic  works,  it  is  perhaps  the  most 
remarkable  and  characteristic.  If  you  had  picked 


"The  Marble  Faun93  79 

up  and  read  a  stray  leaf  of  it  anywhere,  you  would 
have  exclaimed,  "Hawthorne!" 

The  book  is  steeped  in  Italian  atmosphere. 
There  are  many  landscapes  in  it  full  of  breadth 
and  power,  and  criticisms  of  pictures  and  statues 
always  delicate,  often  profound.  In  the  Preface, 
Mr.  Hawthorne  pays  a  well-deserved  tribute  of 
admiration  to  several  of  our  sculptors,  especially 
to  Story  and  Akers.  The  hearty  enthusiasm  with 
which  he  elsewhere  speaks  of  the  former  artist's 
"Cleopatra"  is  no  surprise  to  Mr.  Story's  friends 
at  home,  though  hardly  less  gratifying  to  them 
than  it  must  be  to  the  sculptor  himself. 


D'ISRAELI  AS  A  NOVELIST 


D'ISRAELI  AS  A  NOVELIST  * 

THE  world  of  the  conventional  novel  is 
peculiar  and  apart.  It  lies  somewhere 
in  the  same  parallels  with  the  land  of 
Cockaigne  and  the  Paradise  of  Fools. 
It  cannot  be  far  from  that  district  of  Spain  so 
thickly  dotted  with  castles  erected  by  non-resident 
proprietors.  The  Barbary  coast  of  the  piratical 
cheap-reprinters  lies  within  easy  sail  of  it.  Its 
existence  is  religiously  believed  in  by  thousands 
who  would  contemptuously  overwhelm  one  with 
scientific  confutations  of  the  reality  of  the  Lycan- 
thropi  and  Patagonians.  To  those  whose  broad 
views  of  life  are  taken  from  the  speculative 
heights  of  the  boarding-school  attic,  or  from  behind 
the  isolating  ramparts  of  the  circulating-library 
counter,  it  is  far  more  real  than  Boston  or  Cam 
bridge.  To  them,  the  manners  and  customs,  the 
language,  costume,  and  diet,  of  its  inhabitants  are 
more  familiar  than  those  of  their  own  neighbors" 
and  fellow-citizens.  The  shameful  gibbet  of  the 
upturned  nose  is  erected  at  once  for  such  unworthy 
persons  as  are  ignorant  of  its  politics  and  morals. 
Yet  it  is  a  land  of  comparatively  recent  discovery. 
What  we  know  of  it  is  due  wholly  to  modern 
science  and  energy.  Hakluyt  and  Purchas  are 
quite  vacant  in  regard  to  it.  We  search  for  it 

i  Tancred,   or   the  New   Crusade,  a  Novel.    By  B.   D'ISRAELI, 
M.  P.    1847. 

83 


84.  The  Round  Table 

vainly  in  any  Orbis  Depictus.  Peter  Martyr  tells 
strange  stories,  but  has  described  no  nation  so 
peculiar.  It  may  possibly  have  formed  part  of 
Mercator's  projection,  but  with  him  it  went  no 
farther  than  a  mere  projection,  if  so  far.  There 
is  no  mention  of  it  in  Harris  or  Pinkerton.  Even 
the  voluminous  Mavor,  the  delight  of  our  boy 
hood,  caught  sight  of  it,  if  ever,  only  from  some 
Pisgah's  top. 

The  most  accurate  delineation  of  it  may  be  found 
in  the  works  of  Bulwer  and  D 'Israeli.  Dickens, 
for  a  writer  of  novels,  is  shamefully  uninformed 
in  this  particular;  Mr.  Monks,  in  Oliver  Twist, 
is  the  only  one  of  his  characters  who  gives  us  any 
direct  hint  that  he  is  aware  of  its  existence.  In 
general,  they  impress  us  as  the  acting  of  Garrick 
did  the  disappointed  and  indignant  Partridge. 
We  need  not  look  into  novels  for  such ;  we  can  meet 
them  every  day  in  the  street.  It  is  to  the  two  dis 
tinguished  authors  above  named,  then,  that  we  are 
indebted  for  whatever  precise  knowledge  we  have 
gleaned  of  this  terra  incognita.  Not  that  they 
have  enriched  us  with  a  professedly  exact  and 
minute  description  of  it.  We  must  construct  our 
theory  of  its  social  peculiarities,  as  we  re-create  the 
private  life  of  the  Greeks,  from  the  incidental  data 
let  fall  by  those  in  whose  eyes  objects  had  lost 
their  sharp  outline  by  familiarity.  So  much  of 
preface  seemed  necessary  to  excuse  the  too  evident 
incompleteness  of  our  sketch. 

The  first  peculiar  characteristic  of  the  inhabit 
ants  of  this  shadowy  region  is  their  longevity. 


D'Israeli  as  a  Novelist  85 

They  realize  what  was,  at  best,  only  theoretic 
with  Pythagoras.  This  antediluvian  prolixity  is 
accompanied,  and  perhaps  deprived  of  its  monot 
ony,  by  a  Cerberus-like  capacity  of  being  several 
gentlemen  at  once.  Thus,  the  identical  False 
Messiah  of  the  "Wondrous  Tale  of  Alroy"  turns 
up  again,  after  several  centuries  of  withdrawal 
into  private  life,  in  the  person  of  Vivian  Grey. 
Again  we  encounter  him,  with  scarcely  even  an 
attempt  at  incognito,  performing  contemporane 
ously  the  functions  (fortunately  not  very  oner 
ous)  of  Coningsby,  Sidonia,  Tancred,  and  we 
know  not  how  many  others.  We  are  quite  confi 
dent  that  we  detect  him  as  Mr.  Leander,  the  culi 
nary  artist  of  the  New  Crusade.  In  the  same  man 
ner,  Eugene  Aram,  of  whom  the  last  penalty  of  the 
law  would  seem  to  have  rid  us  in  a  constitutional 
and  thorough  manner,  reappears  again  as  Zanoni, 
and  we  afterwards  find  that  he  had  in  the  mean 
while  imposed  himself  on  a  too  facile  public  as 
something  new,  under  the  several  aliases  of  Paul 
Clifford,  Pelham,  and  Maltravers.  To  be  sure, 
as  Zanoni,  he  offers  a  lame  kind  of  apology  for 
his  conduct,  by  professing  to  have  discovered  the 
aurum  potabile;  but  he  can  hardly  expect  to  escape 
much  longer  the  vigilance  of  the  literary  police. 

The  distinguished  authors  from  whom  our 
examples  have  been  taken  seem  to  have  forgotten, 
in  their  familiarity  with  this  patriarchal  tenacity 
of  life,  the  impoverished  and  more  limited  date  of 
their  readers.  They  have  unconsciously  adapted 
themselves,  in  the  profusion  of  their  works  and  the 


86  The  Round  Table 

rapidity  with  which  one  follows  another,  to  a  style 
of  living  which  finds  its  nearest  modern  parallel 
in  the  famous  Countess  of  Desmond, 

"Who  lived  to  the  age  of  a  hundred  and  ten, 
And  died  by  a  fall  from  an  apple-tree  then." 

The  writing  of  books  of  this  kind  is  compara 
tively  an  easy  matter,  but  the  reading  demands  a 
more  liberal  outlay  of  energy  and  persistency. 
Had  the  crowning  labor  of  Hercules  been  to  keep 
pace  with  the  pen  of  an  author  like  Mr.  G.  P.  R. 
James,  he  would  probably  not  even  yet  have  seen 
his  name  gazetted  for  a  place  on  Olympus.  It  is 
possible,  that,  among  the  improvements  of  science, 
a  machine  may  be  invented  for  the  more  rapid 
perusal  of  this  kind  of  literature.  Delusive  hopes 
have  sometimes  been  awakened  in  us  by  seeing 
advertisements  of  "Reading  made  easy."  Bab- 
bage's  calculating-machine  supplies  very  credit 
ably,  in  scientific  circles,  the  places  of  some  score 
of  mathematicians,  but  the  remedy  for  our  especial 
complaint  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  pharmacopoeia 
of  mechanics.  The  great  want  of  an  age  always 
foretells,  and  in  some  sort  defines,  its  great  inven 
tion;  and  we  may  therefore  look  pretty  confidently 
for  the  speedy  introduction  of  a  labor-saving 
engine,  which  shall  meet  the  demands  of  an  over 
worked  public.  Formerly,  authors  were  more 
considerate.  It  is  plain  that  Richardson  calcu 
lated  his  Sir  Charles  Grandison  for  the  longest 
period  of  years  attainable  in  his  day.  No  other 
reason  is  assignable  for  the  story's  ending  where 


D'lsraeli  as  a  Novelist  87 

it  does,  or  indeed  at  all.  To  a  lover  of  statistics 
there  is  something  touching  in  a  concession  like 
this  to  the  tables  of  longevity.  The  matter  as 
sumes  something  of  a  grand  and  Roman  aspect, 
when  we  picture  to  ourselves  the  stoical  conscien 
tiousness  with  which  he  brought  his  work  to  an 
end,  lest  any  reader,  who  might  fall  a  little  short 
of  the  required  period,  should  miss  the  conclusion, 
and  die  feeling  defrauded  of  his  proper  penny 
worth. 

We  cannot  be  expected  to  give  anything  more 
than  a  meagre  sketch  of  the  interesting  race  of 
beings  of  whom  we  were  treating  at  the  other  end 
of  our  digression,  and  to  whose  consideration  we 
now  return.  It  may  be  well  to  premise,  that, 
besides  the  particular  names  with  which  they  are 
labeled  for  the  sake  of  convenient  distinction  (a 
precaution  rendered  necessary  by  their  singular 
family-likeness  one  to  another),  they  are  also 
known  by  one  universal  patronymic.  Each  male 
is  called  a  Hero,  and  each  female  a  Heroine.  It 
may  be,  that,  in  common  with  all  races  who  have 
achieved  eminence,  they  ascribe  to  themselves  a 
mythical  inception.  Generally,  the  fable  typi 
fied  the  character  of  the  people.  The  she-wolf's 
milk  would  not  out  of  the  Roman  blood,  and  the 
Athenian  could  trace  the  transmitted  qualities  of 
his  ancestral  grasshopper  in  his  own  fickle  and 
mercurial  temperament.  The  tribe  under  consid 
eration  may  claim  an  origin  in  the  famous  intimacy 
of  Hero  and  Leander,  assuming  the  name  of  its 
maternal  ancestor,  according  to  the  principles  of 


88  The  Round  Table 

the  common  law,  for  want  of  a  marriage  certificate. 
The  early  demise  of  Hero  furnishes  no  valid  argu 
ment  against  this  theory.  Every  day  we  see 
genealogists  of  enthusiasm  and  fortitude  cheer 
fully  surmounting  far  more  serious  obstacles.  At 
least,  if  this  be  not  the  true  solution  of  the  problem, 
a  just  deference  to  the  principles  of  language  will 
allow  us  to  seek  it  nowhere  else.  No  recognized 
definition  of  the  word  "Hero"  will  meet  the  wants 
of  the  case. 

It  has  been  assumed  too  rashly  by  ethical 
writers,  that  no  race  of  men  can  be  found  among 
whom  there  does  not  exist  some  idea,  however 
rude,  of  a  deity,  a  future  state  of  existence,  and  a 
moral  law.  Wilson  detected  traces  of  a  sense  of 
justice  even  among  martins;  and  we  remember 
reading  in  some  books  of  travels  an  account  of  a 
funeral  procession  of  apes,  concluding  with  an 
eloge  pronounced  at  the  grave  by  a  distinguished 
member  of  the  Simial  Academy, — which  learned 
body,  like  other  foreign  scientific  and  literary 
societies,  has  doubtless  its  corresponding  members 
in  the  United  States,  though  we  have  hitherto 
failed  to  detect  its  insignia  in  the  mystical  abbrevi 
ations  of  title-page  literature,  or  in  the  Ciceronian 
Latin  of  college  catalogues.  However  this  may 
be,  we  have  been  unable  to  find  any  distinct  recog 
nition  of  a  God  or  a  code  of  morals  among  the 
peculiar  people  whose  habits  we  are  investigating. 
The  only  symptom  of  respect  even  for  the  preju 
dices  of  society  which  they  exhibit  is  to  be  found 
in  their  almost  invariably  claiming  a  descent  from 


D'Israeli  as  a  Novelist  89 

some  ancient  and  generally  noble  family.  It  is 
not  impossible  that  the  goddess  Vacuna  may  be 
worshipped  among  them.  They  are  generally 
said  to  be  learned  and  philosophical;  but  the  pos 
session  of  these  qualities  hardly  comports  with 
their  habits  of  life,  and  the  story  wants  ampler 
confirmation  than  we  have  yet  seen.  It  certainly 
is  not  at  all  sustained  by  any  of  their  reported 
speeches  or  deeds. 

If  what  we  have  surmised  of  their  longevity  be 
true,  it  will  elucidate  another  circumstance  other 
wise  mysterious.  We  allude  to  the  indefiniteness 
of  their  ideas  concerning  time.  Those  little  items 
in  the  expenditure  of  this  precious  commodity, 
over  which  a  man  would  hesitate  whose  income  was 
determinable  by  the  seignioral  whim  of  death,  are 
quite  lightly  esteemed  by  those  whose  lives  are  not 
dependent  on  the  ordinary  contingencies  of  mor 
tality.  Thus,  in  their  books,  we  constantly  meet 
with  statements  like  this: — "On  a  fine  afternoon 
in  the  year  16 — ,  a  youth  whose  etc.,  etc.  might 
bespeak  him  to  be  of  the  age  of  twenty-five  or 
thereabout;" — or,  "On  a  breezy  September  after 
noon  in  the  year  18 — ,  a  man  whose  immaculate 
boots  suitably  terminated  a  costume  of  singular 
etc.,  etc.  might  have  been  seen."  In  this  way  we 
are  provokingly  arrested  on  the  very  threshold  of 
precise  knowledge,  and  the  conditional  expression 
leaves  us  in  a  painful  state  of  suspense.  Every 
thing  becomes  at  once  vague  and  phantasmal,  like 
the  banquet  of  a  Lamia,  and  the  illusory  viands 
which  had  satisfied  our  intellectual  appetites,  as 


90  The  Round  Table 

long  as  we  partook  of  them  in  good  faith,  gripe  us 
with  a  retrospective  starvation. 

Several  physiological  peculiarities  are  sufficiently 
well  established  in  regard  to  the  subjects  of  our 
somewhat  erratic  investigation.  We  know  theo 
retically  that  all  mankind  naturally  behold  objects 
reversed,  and  only  correct  this  apparently  needless 
optical  ceremony  by  an  unconscious  act  of  reason. 
This  process  of  reasoning  is  rejected  by  these 
people  as  superfluous  and  artificial;  and  there  is 
something  not  unrefreshing  to  a  mind  accustomed 
to  our  conventional  distinctions  in  noting  the  im 
pressions  and  studying  the  mental  habits  of  those 
to  whom  all  objects,  especially  in  morals,  present 
themselves  invariably  upside  down.  While  upon 
the  subject  of  optics,  we  may  remark,  also,  that 
their  looks  always  contain  a  volume  of  meaning 
(certainly  not  one  of  the  volumes  of  either  of  the 
famous  authors  from  whom  we  chiefly  draw  our 
information) ,  a  compensation  doubtless  intended 
by  even-handed  Nature  to  make  up  for  the  preter 
natural  vacuity  of  their  speech.  One  other  fact 
is  singular  enough  to  be  commented  on  here.  All 
their  male  children  are  born  with  silver  spoons  in 
their  mouths.  This  accounts  for  their  always 
marrying  heiresses,  or  succeeding  to  immense 
estates  early  in  life,  and  throws  all  the  responsi 
bility  for  a  seemingly  unequal  distribution  of 
material  blessings  upon  the  ample  shoulders  of 
natural  causes.  It  has  been  supposed  by  many, 
that  these  curious  appendages  of  nativity  are 
ladles,  or  at  least  spoons  of  more  Homeric  dimen- 


D'lsraeli  as  a  Novelist  91 

sions  than  any  we  are  familiar  with.  This  may, 
however,  be  merely  a  theoretic  adaptation  of  ante 
cedent  to  consequence,  arising  from  an  effort  of 
logical  minds  to  graduate  the  size  of  the  spoon  to 
the  amount  of  luck  contingent  upon  it.  It  should 
never  be  forgotten,  that  this  sublime  species  is 
not  amenable  to  any  of  those  influences  which  are 
dominant  in  our  more  limited  organizations.  Cer 
tain  it  is,  that  none  of  them  possess  the  happy 
faculty  of  being  poor.  No  translation  would 
make  intelligible  to  them  the 

"vitae  tuta  facultas 
Pauperis." 

We  have  not  been  able  to  discover  that  they 
devote  themselves  to  any  of  the  professions  which 
are  considered  reputable  among  us.  The  life  of 
a  brigand  is  clearly  not  liable  to  reproach  among 
them,  and  they  not  infrequently  present  examples 
of  dandies  with  immeasurable  aspirations,  aesthetic 
assassins,  and  thieves  from  a  devotion  to  the  sub 
lime  and  beautiful.  Within  a  few  years  they  have 
begun  to  adapt  themselves  to  the  general  tendency 
toward  Reform;  and  here  they  have  exhibited  an 
almost  celestial  unselfishness,  appropriating  all 
their  efforts  to  the  defects  of  their  neighbors,  and 
leaving  their  own  to  divine  interposition  and 
providential  ravens.  Their  women  differ  not 
greatly  from  the  other  sex.  Perhaps  the  profound 
author  of  "Woman  in  the  Nineteenth  Century" 
designed  to  typify  them  under  the  class  of  women 
of  "electric  organizations,"  concerning  whom  she 
utters  many  mysterious  oracles.  Perhaps  the  laws 


92  The  Round  Table 

of  this  phenomenal  society  forbade  her  being  more 
definite.  In  Silliman's  Journal  there  was  pub 
lished,  several  years  ago,  an  account  of  a  lady  in 
Vermont  who  emitted  sparks  whenever  she  ap 
proached  any  metallic  substance.  A  closer  analy 
sis  of  this  case  might  possibly  throw  some  light  on 
the  matter. 

It  may  be,  that  there  is  no  particular  locality 
inhabited  by  this  interesting  tribe,  where  they  con 
stitute  a  distinct  people,  governed  by  their  own 
laws,  and  free  to  carry  out  their  own  principles  of 
action.  It  has  sometimes  occurred  to  us,  that 
they  might  possibly  exist  among  ourselves,  like  the 
Jews  in  Spain,  or  like  the  brethren  of  the  mysteri 
ous  Vehm  and  of  the  Rose  Cross  in  Germany,  sub 
jecting  our  more  commonplace  existence  to  the 
criterion  of  their  sublimer  ideal.  They  resemble 
the  Rosicrucians  in  using  a  kind  of  cryptography 
totally  destitute  of  meaning  to  the  unilluminated 
eye,  but  differ  from  them  again  in  regard  to  the 
sacred  numbers,  holding  only  Number  One  in 
peculiar  veneration.  We  have  fancied  sometimes, 
that  we  could  detect,  in  the  countenances  of 
young  gentlemen  who  measured  us  a  yard  of  tape, 
what  would  be  called  by  their  cabalistic  writers  a 
mysterious  something,  indicating  a  sense  of  awful 
responsibility,  and  a  half-melancholy,  half-con 
temptuous  superiority  to  the  drudgery  whose 
convenient  disguise  they  have  assumed.  It  is  not 
unlikely,  that  members  of  the  guild  may  be  found 
among  that  lazzaroni  class  of  our  population  who 
fish  from  the  bridges  and  wharves,  or  more  prob- 


D'Israeli  as  a  Novelist  93 

ably  in  those  who  watch  and  criticize  the  piscatory 
endeavors  of  others.  This  surmise  finds  confir 
mation  in  their  entire  want  of  any  useful  employ 
ment  whatever,  in  their  use  of  a  dialect  semi-unin 
telligible  to  the  ordinary  hearer,  and  their  sublime 
indifference  to  those  limited  theories  of  government 
and  reform  which  obtain  in  the  community  of 
which  they  consent  to  appear  members.  Their 
hands  are  commonly  thrust  deep  into  their  pockets, 
as  if  in  contemptuous  defiance  of  the  primal  curse, 
or  in  tacit  assumption  of  some  higher  than  an 
Adamite  original.  Their  costume,  also,  is  at  once 
negligent  and  graceful,  and  less  indicative  of  a 
slavish  dependence  upon  the  tailor,  than  of  the  in 
ventive  embroideries  of  private  taste  and  original 
views  in  art. — But  we  must  leave  this  tempting 
theme,  and  let  ourselves  down  gradually  to  the 
subject  of  our  present  article. 

The  palmy  days  of  the  novel  are  gone  forever. 
Its  age  is  passed,  like  that  of  chivalry,  whose 
decadence  Burke  could  lament,  but  whose  precise 
place  in  history  he  would  have  been  puzzled  to 
define.  The  world  is  not  what  it  was  when  Byron 
wrote  to  England  for  the  last  Scotch  novel,  and 
lazy  Coleridge  felt  grumblingly  constrained  to 
read  it  by  a  kind  of  Ancient  Mariner's  spell.  The 
invention  of  printing,  which  brought  down  the 
apple  of  knowledge  within  the  reach  of  all,  seems 
to  have  entailed  likewise  upon  mankind  a  laborious 
curse  akin  to  that  which  ensued  from  the  original 
bite,  and  it  is  only  within  a  few  years  that  men 
have  begun  to  ask  themselves  why  they  read.  The 


94.  The  Round  Table 

patience  of  mankind  in  this  particular  makes  Job 
no  longer  exceptional.  "Chappelow  on  Job"  is  a 
sorer  trial  than  ever  visited  the  patriarch  himself. 
A  modern  degeneracy  wonders  at  the  heroic  age 
which  took  "Calvinus  in  Prophetas"  and  "Vitringa 
in  Esaiam"  as  matters  of  course.  That  men  should 
have  conquered  Dwight's  Conquest  of  Canaan 
seems  now  as  prodigious  a  thing  as  the  great 
achievement  of  Cortez  himself;  and  the  journal 
of  some  worthy  Bernal  Diaz  who  took  part  in  the 
enterprise  would  be  an  interesting  record  of  devo 
tion  and  courage.  We  ourselves  once,  infected  with 
Wertherism,  began  to  peruse  Morse  on  Suicide, 
as  a  convenient,  and  not  inadequate,  substitute  for 
the  thing  itself.  We  are  apt  to  look  upon  such 
books  as  the  megatheria  of  literature;  but  the  race 
of  dodos  survives  to  connect  us  with  an  otherwise 
extinct  epoch.  Have  we  not  our  commentators 
upon  Shakspeare?  Have  we  not  our  almost 
hourly  novels?  Have  we  not  our  periodic  inflic 
tions,  from  the  daily  newspaper  up  to  the  quar 
terly,  the  multicaulis  of  the  species?  Neverthe 
less,  the  reign  of  the  novelists  was  over,  like  that 
of  the  Barbary  corsairs,  as  soon  as  Christen 
dom  began  to  inquire  whether  there  was  any 
foreordained  necessity  for  submitting  to  their 
exactions.  Literature  has  taken  what  is  called  a 
useful  direction,  and  the  romantic  fiction  of  the 
traveler  is  gradually  crowding  out  that  of  the  nov 
elist. 

In  point  of  fact,  also,  the  gradual  exclusion  of 
the  novelist  from  the  improbable,  and  his  confine- 


D'lsraeli  as  a  Novelist  95 

merit  to  the  region  of  every-day  life,  amount  to  a 
kind  of  prohibitory  statute  against  all  but  men  of 
genuine  creative  power.  We  can  show  nothing 
now  that  will  compare  in  kind  with  the  romantic 
dreams  of  our  ancestors.  The  exploration  and 
settlement  of  this  Western  world,  while  they  have 
added  myriads  to  the  circle  of  the  story-teller,  have 
at  the  same  time  robbed  romance  of  one  of  its 
widest  and  most  enticing  fields.  The  age  of  ex 
pectation  is  past.  It  is  true  that  English  trav 
elers  among  us  have  endeavored  to  ignore  the 
silent  flight  of  centuries  and  the  uncompromising 
advance  of  exact  knowledge,  and  have  continued 
to  write  in  the  imaginative  strain  of  those  voy 
agers  who  adventured  at  a  period  when  geography 
and  general  science  were  in  a  state  of  more 
fortunate  obscurity.  But  the  mariner  no  longer 
hoists  confident  sail  for  El  Dorado.  No  Ponce 
de  Leon  ravishes  the  virgin  silence  of  embowered 
rivers  in  believing  search  for  the  fountain  of  youth, 
a  fountain  in  whose  existence  the  ever-young  fancy 
of  that  unskeptical  age  might  almost  tempt  us  to 
put  faith.  No  English  crew,  trailing  with  sleepy 
canvas  through  those  sun-steeped  seas, 

"Where  the  remote  Bermudas  ride 
In  the  ocean's  bosom  unespied," 

can  dream  of  the  Marquis  of  the  Valley,  and  of 
empires  overrun  by  a  handful  of  Buccaneers,  with 
any  substantial  hope  of  emulating  that  Aladdin- 
like  fortunateness,  nor  can  they  bring  home  tales 
out  of  which  such  "golden  exhalations  of  the  dawn" 


96  The  Round  Table 

as  Ariel  can  be  created.  Stephens,  to  be  sure, 
with  a  praiseworthy  endeavor  after  such  precious 
credulity,  tells  stories  of  undiscovered  cities  in 
Central  America,  incapable  of  entrapping  our 
boys  of  the  lowest  form.  The  discovery  of  a  new 
plant,  bird,  or  insect  is  the  sole  reward  of  modern 
adventure.  We  must  perforce  be  content  that  an 
addition  to  our  authentic  Flora  or  Fauna  shall 
repay  us  for  the  loss  we  suffer  in  the  diminished 
empire  of  the  unknown  and  mysterious.  The 
mere  potential  possession  of  those  wondrous 
efficacies  which  were  once  believed  to  dwell  in 
plants  and  minerals,  of  those  untraversed  empires 
ribbed  with  gold  which  waited  for  conquerors,  was 
in  itself  a  great  estate  to  be  born  to,  the  loss  of 
which  finds  but  a  beggarly  compensation  in  any 
accession  of  preciser  science.  The  index  to 
Browne's  Vulgar  Errors  is  a  meagre  inventory  of 
those  vast  possessions  out  of  which  the  advance  of 
knowledge  has  juggled  us.  Even  among  the 
stars,  speculation  is  no  longer  safe.  The  astron 
omer,  drifting  on  his  telescope  through  the  sea  of 
space,  finds  every  gleaming  continent,  every  neb 
ulous  Polynesian  group,  already  taken  possession 
of  in  the  name  of  some  European  power. 

The  present  age,  we  are  constantly  assured,  is 
an  age  of  criticism  and  inquiry,  quite  barren  of 
the  beautiful,  childlike  faith  of  the  bygone  time. 
We  are  well  content  that  it  should  be  so,  while 
we  can  see  a  higher  and  more  saving  grace  grad 
ually  unfolding  itself.  We  shall  not  feel  that 
there  is  any  loss,  so  long  as  a  faith  in  the  present 


D'Israeli  as  a  Novelist  97 

and  the  future,  in  man  and  his  true  destiny,  takes 
the  place  of  the  old  religion.  Out  of  the  decay  of 
no  system  can  we  reproduce  its  original  type. 
There  is  nourishment  only  for  a  fungous  and  in 
ferior  life.  One  epoch  is  but  the  sheath  which 
envelopes  and  protects  the  flower-bud  of  the  next;- 
the  expanding  blossom  detrudes  it.  Experience 
may  be  the  best  schoolmaster,  but  where  is  the  in 
stance  in  history  of  a  generation  in  whom  his 
birch  implanted  any  wisdom?  At  best,  his  quali 
ties  are  negative,  and  he  teaches  rather  what  to 
avoid  than  what  to  do.  Yet  there  is  in  England 
a  political  party,  or  a  spasmodic  attempt  at  one, 
based  upon  the  dogma  that  all  salvation  dwells 
in  the  past.  Mr.  D 'Israeli  the  younger  is  one  of 
the  Coryphaei  of  this  sect,  and  Tancred  is  one  of 
its  canonical  books.  It  calls  itself  "Young  Eng 
land,"  and  we  should  be  inclined  to  consider  it 
very  young  indeed,  if  we  might  judge  by  the  clear 
est  apprehension  we  have  been  able  to  attain  of  the 
principles  by  which  it  professes  to  be  governed. 
It  claims  to  be  the  friend  of  reform,  but  seems  to 
look  upon  progress  as  something  of  the  same 
nature  with  the  refractory  charge  of  an  Irish  pig- 
driver,  and  pulls  it  back  stoutly  by  the  leg  in  a 
direction  precisely  the  reverse  of  that  in  which  it 
would  have  it  advance.  Coningsby,  Sibyl,  and 
Tancred  are  samples  of  its  literature.  Of  its  Par 
liamentary  oratory  the  staple  seems  to  be  a  series 
of  assaults  upon  Sir  Robert  Peel  for  the  wisest 
act  of  his  life,  in  yielding  to  the  progress  of  events. 
These  onslaughts  are  of  the  style  usually  called 


98  The  Bound  Table 

"withering";  but  from  his  remarks  on  the  Irish 
question,  we  should  suppose  the  late  Premier  to  be 
as  verdant  as  ever. 

The  "Young  England"  party  is  apparently 
made  up  of  something  like  a  dozen  middle-aged 
gentlemen,  either  members  of  Parliament,  or  con 
ceiving  themselves  eminently  adapted  for  a  seat 
in  that  assembly.  They  are  persuaded  that  there 
has  been,  at  some  time  or  other  (they  are  some 
what  vague  on  this  point),  a  golden  age  in  Eng 
land.  They  are  satisfied  that  John  Bull  must  be 
made  a  boy  again,  that  all  work  and  no  play  have 
made  Jack  a  dull  boy.  But  in  what  Medea's 
caldron  they  would  boil  the  allegorical  old  gentle 
man  we  are  not  informed.  That  the  result  of  the 
experiment  would  not  be  more  fortunate  than  that 
of  the  daughters  of  Pelias,  we  can  readily  believe. 
They  do  not  define  exactly  the  happy  oasis  in  the 
desert  of  history  to  which  they  would  return. 
Perhaps  it  may  be  located  not  far  from  the  time  of 
the  publication  of  the  Book  of  Sports.  They 
would  restore  the  happy  days  of  the  peasantry, 
by  setting  them  to  climb  greased  poles,  or  race  in 
sacks.  An  occasional  game  of  skittles  would  at 
once  elevate  the  condition  and  fill  the  bellies  of  the 
operatives.  Squires  Butler,  Smith,  and  Cook, 
otherwise  rather  unendurable  country-gentlemen, 
would  be  transformed  into  liberal  and  enlightened 
citizens,  as  Messrs.  Boteler,  Smythe,  and  Coke. 
Hollow-cheeked  want  and  abysmal  ignorance,  in 
a  frieze  jacket  and  corduroy  smalls,  would  become 
plump  satiety  and  Arcadian  simplicity,  in  a 


D'Israeli  as  a  Novelist  99 

doublet  and  hose.  They  seem  all  to  have  been 
born  under  the  dominance  of  Cancer,  and,  walk 
ing  steadfastly  backward,  would  persuade  us,  like 
Cacus,  to  take  the  direction  of  their  footprints  as 
ample  evidence  of  an  advance  the  other  way. 
They  have  an  appearance  of  wisdom  sufficient  to 
captivate  the  greener  sort  of  boys.  The  enuncia 
tion  of  the  simplest  fact  wears  with  them  the  air 
of  a  discovery,  and  the  words  must  begin  with 
capitals  to  be  adequate  to  the  occasion.  They 
suppose  an  ignorance  in  their  readers  which  would 
perhaps  have  overtaxed  that  humility  of  the  old 
philosopher  who  considered  his  education  complete 
when  he  had  learned  at  last  that  he  knew  nothing. 
They  talk  of  absolute  principles  as  familiarly  as  a 
snob  quotes  his  distinguished  acquaintances,  his 
nearest  intimacy  with  whom,  perhaps,  has  been 
the  writing  to  them  for  an  autograph  and  getting 
no  reply.  They  criticize  the  present  condition  of 
affairs,  and,  when  asked  for  a  remedy,  their  answer 
is  as  satisfactory  as  that  with  which  contemptuous 
boys  refer  the  snowballed  passer-by,  who  proves 
refractory,  to  the  town-pump  for  sympathy  and 
redress.  They  find  the  pulse  of  the  body  politic 
alarming,  and  prescribe  ten  drops  of  the  tincture 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  Alas  for  poor  Sancho,  if 
once  seduced  into  a  trial  of  this  Quixotic  balsam! 
Is  Ireland  starving?  They  would  order  iron,  by 
way  of  tonic,  and  prevent  any  recurrence  of  un 
favorable  symptoms  by  a  strong  infusion  of  rail 
roads,  beginning  nowhere,  running  nowhere  else, 
and  carrying  nothing  but  a  conviction  of  the  imbe- 


100  The  Round  Table 

cility  of  government.  Like  a  barometer  from  an 
auction-sale,  they  inflexibly  indicate  a  storm  brew 
ing,  nor  can  any  length  of  sunshine  avail  to  mollify 
their  contumacious  vaticination  of  foul  weather. 
They  have  a  prodigious  command  of  phrases. 
They  affirm  this  and  that,  and  deny  the  other,  of 
any  given  subject,  and,  after  wholly  bemuddling 
the  too  trustful  reader,  who,  with  open  mouth  and 
shut  eyes,  sincerely  expects  something  to  make  him 
wise,  complete  their  victory  and  his  mortification 
by  naming  the  process  a  rigorous  analysis, — emu 
lating  the  hardihood  of  that  equestrian  nominalist 
who 

"Stuck  a  feather  in  his  hat 
And  called  it  macaroni." 

They  overwhelm  us  with  "objective"  and  "sub 
jective,"  with  "combinations,"  "problems,"  and 
"developments,"  till  we  are  fain  to  believe  in  our 
own  ignorance  rather  than  credit  the  boldness  and 
profundity  of  theirs.  They  are  of  the  school  of 
Diphilus  the  Labyrinth,  whom  we  met  once  in 
Lucian's  Lapithge.  Their  truths  are  invariably 
stranger  than  any  but  their  own  fictions.  Their 
method  of  argument  reminds  one  of  Lord  Hume- 
vesne's  plea: — "If  the  iniquity  of  men  were  as 
easily  seen  in  categorical  judgment  as  we  can  dis 
cern  flies  in  a  milk-pot,  the  world's  four  oxen  had 
not  been  so  eaten  up  with  rats,  nor  had  so  many 
ears  been  nibbled  away  so  scurvily."  They,  how 
ever,  do  not  appear  to  have  undergone  any  such 
auricular  curtailment.  They  profess  an  entire 


D'lsraeli  as  a  Novelist  101 

confidence  in  the  efficacy  of  Faith,  and  charge  all 
the  world's  troubles  to  a  backsliding  in  that  par 
ticular.  This  Faith  they  seem  to  regard  as  some 
thing  capable  of  manufacture,  and  not  beyond  the 
cunning  of  Manchester  or  Sheffield.  Their  best 
type  in  America  is  Mr.  Brownson  (male  tutce 
mentis  Orestes),  who,  nailing  at  length  his  weary 
weathercock  to  the  mast,  and  gulping  down  with 
an  equable  countenance  oecumenical  councils,  car 
dinals,  popes,  whole  hecatombs  of  papal  bulls,  and 
(more  than  all)  his  own  previous  writings,  would 
persuade  the  public,  by  an  exhibition  of  his  own 
marvelous  feats  in  that  kind,  to  the  more  hazard 
ous  experiment  of  swallowing  himself  and  his 
pretensions. 

But  Mr.  D'Israeli  is  not  a  gentleman  of  suf 
ficiently  assured  position  to  wait  patiently  in  the 
antechamber,  and  it  is  time  that  we  should  apply 
ourselves  personally  to  him.  He  is  a  great  be 
liever  in  the  idiosyncrasies  of  race,  and  the  peculiar 
tendencies  and  faculties  implanted  in  the  differ 
ent  families  of  mankind.  He  himself  furnishes 
an  unconscious  illustration  of  his  own  theory. 
Seldom  has  the  inner  life  been  so  aptly  symbolized 
in  the  outward  as  in  the  case  of  the  Jews.  That 
the  idolaters  of  ceremony  and  tradition  should 
become  the  venders  of  old  clothes,  that  the  de 
scendants  of  those  who,  within  earshot  of  the 
thunders  of  Sinai,  could  kneel  before  the  golden 
calf,  should  be  the  money-changers  of  Europe, 
has  in  it  something  of  syllogistic  completeness. 
The  work  by  which  the  elder  D'Israeli  will  be  re- 


102  The  Round  Table 

membered  is  the  old  curiosity  shop  of  literature. 
He  is  merely  a  cast-clothesdealer  in  an  aesthetic 
sense.  The  son,  with  his  trumpery  of  the  past, 
is  clearly  a  vender  of  the  same  wares,  and  an  off 
shoot  from  the  same  stock. 

In  Coningsby  and  Tancred,  Mr.  D'Israeli  has 
interwoven  a  kind  of  defense  of  the  Jewish  race 
against  the  absurd  prejudices  of  a  so-called  Christ 
endom.  The  Arab  proves  his  unmixed  descent  by 
the  arch  of  his  instep ;  and,  unless  we  conclude  men 
mad  as  sturdy  old  Burton  argues  them,  we  must 
suppose  that  the  pleasurable  sensation  of  pedigree 
has  somewhere  its  peculiar  organ  in  the  human 
frame.  With  proper  deference  to  the  opinions  of 
other  physiologists,  we  should  be  inclined  to  place 
the  seat  of  this  emotion  in  the  Caucasian  race  near 
the  region  of  the  toes.  Tribes  of  this  stock,  at 
least,  have  always  seemed  to  consider  the  keeping 
of  somebody  or  other  to  kick  as  at  once  a  proof  of 
purity  of  lineage,  and  a  suitable  gratification  of 
those  nobler  instincts  which  it  implants.  In 
Europe,  the  Jews  have  long  monopolized  the  re 
sponsible  privilege  of  supplying  an  object  for  this 
peculiar  craving  of  the  supreme  Caucasian  nature. 
The  necessity  of  each  rank  in  society  found  a  vent 
upon  that  next  below  it,  the  diapason  ending  full 
in  the  Jew;  and  thus  a  healthy  feeling  of  dignity 
was  maintained  from  one  end  of  the  body  politic 
to  the  other.  In  America,  the  African  supplies 
the  place  of  the  Hebrew,  and  the  sturdiest  cham 
pion  of  impartial  liberty  feels  the  chromatic  scale 
of  equal  rights  violated  when  the  same  steam  is 


D'Israeli  as  a  Novelist  103 

employed  to  drag  him  and  his  darker  fellow-citi 
zen.  Civilization  has  made  wonderful  advances 
since  the  apostle  Philip  mounted  the  chariot  of 
the  Ethiopian  eunuch.  It  must  be  remembered, 
however,  that  Ethiopians  do  not  keep  chariots 
nowadays. 

For  once,  Mr.  D 'Israeli  seems  to  be  in  earnest, 
and  we  respect  both  his  zeal  and  the  occasion  of 
it.  The  pen  is  never  so  sacred  as  when  it  takes 
the  place  of  the  sword  in  securing  freedom, 
whether  for  races  or  ideas.  But  the  earnestness 
of  a  charlatan  is  only  a  profounder  kind  of  charla 
tanism.  The  moral  of  Tancred,  if  it  have  any,  is, 
that  effete  Europe  can  be  renewed  only  by  a  fresh 
infusion  from  the  veins  of  Asia, — a  nostrum  for 
rejuvenescence  to  be  matched  only  out  of  the 
pages  of  Hermippus  Redivivus.  According  to 
Mr.  D'Israeli,  all  primitive  ideas  have  originated, 
and  must  forever  originate,  in  Asia,  and  among 
the  descendants  of  Abraham.  He  would  have  us 
go  to  school  to  Noah  in  navigation,  and  learn  the 
nicer  distinctions  of  meum  and  tuum  from  Ish- 
mael.  He  would  make  us  believe  that  the  Jewish 
mind  still  governs  the  world,  through  the  medium 
of  prime-ministers,  bankers,  and  actresses.  The 
chief  excellence  of  this  arrangement  is,  that  we 
are  profoundly  ignorant  of  it.  We  are  provided 
for  by  the  supreme  Arabian  intellect,  and  at  the 
same  time  have  all  the  pleasure  of  imagining  that 
we  manage  our  own  affairs.  The  dispersion  of 
the  Jews  (a  nation  so  eminently  successful  in  con 
trolling  their  own  political  interests)  was  no  doubt 


104  The  Round  Table 

intended  by  Providence  to  supply  Christendom 
with  administrative  intellects. 

In  simple  truth,  it  seems  to  have  been  a  pro 
vision  of  nature  that  divine  ideas  should  have  been 
committed  to  the  Jews,  as  great  fortunes  come  to 
unthrift  heirs,  because  they  were  unable  to  keep 
possession  of  them.  The  world  is  indeed  too  much 
governed  by  the  Jewish  mind,  though  not  in  the 
sense  Mr.  D'Israeli  intended.  Instead  of  the 
absolute  truth,  it  accepts  the  corrupt  Hebrew 
gloss.  The  Jews  were  never  able  to  look  an 
organic  truth  full  in  the  face.  They  could  not 
even  behold  clearly  the  countenance  of  their  first 
great  lawgiver,  for  the  brightness  that  encom 
passed  it;  much  less  could  they  discern  the  more 
purely  effulgent  lineaments  of  Jesus.  The  Gos 
pels  are  still  too  often  read  backward,  after  the 
Hebrew  fashion. 

Mr.  D'Israeli  would  be  more  endurable,  if  he 
himself  thoroughly  believed  in  the  theory  he  pro 
mulgates.  But  it  is  evident  that  he  only  assumes 
his  position  for  the  sake  of  writing  what  one  half 
of  May  Fair  shall  pronounce  brilliant,  and  the 
other  half  profound.  An  original  kind  of  orig 
inality  has  lately  been  discovered,  which  consists 
in  asserting  sheer  nonsense,  and  then  compassion 
ating  the  incredulous  reader's  want  of  brains. 
The  old  scientific  writers  used  to  define  white  as 
disgregativum  visus,  something  which  dissipated 
and  puzzled  the  sight.  A  kind  of  writing  has  ob 
tained  of  late  which  realizes  this  definition.  It  is 
called  the  brilliant  style,  and  has  at  least  this 


D'Israeli  as  a  Novelist  105 

property  of  brilliancy,  that  the  eye  strives  in  vain 
to  settle  upon  and  clutch  any  definite  object. 
The  natural  philosopher  would  be  posed  to  find  a 
substance  in  which  the  mass  bore  so  small  a  pro 
portion  to  the  volume,  or,  to  speak  more  properly, 
the  number  of  volumes.  It  is  painful  reading. 
The  wearied  attention  can  alight  nowhere.  Get 
ting  through  books  constructed  on  this  principle 
is  like  crossing  a  stream  upon  blocks  of  ice,  each 
one  of  which  admits  of  being  skimmed  lightly  over, 
but  where  a  pause  insures  hopeless  submersion. 
Arrived  on  the  other  side,  we  have  no  distinct 
consciousness  except  of  being  over,  and  can  only 
congratulate  ourselves  upon  our  happy  preserva 
tion.  It  is  a  feat  which  demands  as  much  presence 
of  mind  in  the  reader  as  it  implies  an  absence  of 
that  quality  in  the  writer.  When  such  produc 
tions  are  called  works  of  fiction,  we  cannot  com 
plain  of  being  cheated.  They  have  been  subjected 
to  no  natural  period  of  gestation,  and  acknowledge 
no  received  laws  of  birth.  They  are  constructed 
after  the  manner  of  Paracelsus's  Tiomunculus,  and 
are  as  near  of  kin  to  true  works  of  art  as  the  trees 
in  apothecaries'  jars  are  to  the  pines  on  Katahdin. 
There  is  enough  artifice,  but  no  art.  Dryden,  in 
a  letter  to  Dennis,  says, — "I  remember  poor  Nat 
Lee,  who  was  upon  the  verge  of  madness,  yet 
made  a  sober  and  witty  answer  to  a  bad  poet  who 
told  him,  'It  was  an  easy  thing  to  write  like  a 
madman.'  'No,'  said  he,  '  'tis  very  difficult  to 
write  like  a  madman,  but  'tis  a  very  easy  thing  to 
write  like  a  fool.'  " 


106  The  Round  Table 

We  should  not  be  so  severe  in  our  exactions  of 
the  novel,  except  that  it  no  longer  professes  to 
amuse,  but  to  instruct.  This  is  the  age  of  lectures. 
Even  Punch  has  got  into  the  professor's  chair, 
and  donned  the  doctor's  cap.  The  novel  has  be 
come  a  quack  advertisement  in  three  volumes. 
Formerly,  we  could  detect  the  political  economist 
at  a  reasonable  distance,  and  escape  him  by  a  well- 
contrived  dodge.  Now,  no  sanctuary  is  inviolate. 
Adam  Smith  gets  us  inexorably  by  the  button  in 
the  corner  of  some  shilling  novel,  and  Malthus 
entraps  us  from  behind  the  unsuspected  ambush 
of  the  last  new  poem.  Even  the  tragic  Muse 
drops  her  mask,  and  behold,  Mr.  Ricardo!  It  is 
getting  past  endurance.  Chandler's  History  of 
Persecution  supplies  no  instance  more  atrocious. 
The  novelist  has  turned  colporteur  to  some  board 
of  political  missions,  and  the  propagandist  of 
every  philosophical  soup-and-bread  society  as 
sumes  the  disguise  of  a  poet.  The  times  are  well- 
nigh  as  bad  as  those  a  century  and  a  half  ago, 
when  our  forefathers  were  fain  to  carry  their  fire 
locks  to  meeting.  Everywhere  are  surprisals. 
One  cannot  saunter  down  what  were  once  the  green 
lanes  or  deep  withdrawn  woodpaths  of  literature, 
without  being  set  upon  by  a  whooping  band  of 
savages,  who  knock  one  on  the  head  with  the  bal 
ance  of  trade,  or  tomahawk  one  with  merciless 
statistics.  Everywhere  pure  literature  seems  de 
funct.  Art  for  the  sole  sake  of  art  is  no  more. 
Beauty  is  no  longer  "its  own  excuse  for  being." 
It  must  have  a  certificate  of  membership  from 


D'Israeli  as  a  Novelist  107 

the  Anti-something  or  Anti-everything  Alliance. 

Let  us  not  be  misapprehended.  Divine  is  the 
marriage  of  beauty  and  use;  them  God  hath  joined. 
The  crowning  and  consummate  grace  of  the  Muse 
is  the  pouring  of  wine  and  oil.  She  has  walked 
before  every  higher  aspiration,  every  more  gener 
ous  hope  of  humanity.  Fetters  which  the  dumb 
tears  of  ages  have  not  availed  to  rust  in  twain  have 
fallen  asunder  at  her  look.  What  she  has  done 
has  been  from  a  beautiful  necessity  of  her  nature. 
But  a  Muse  with  an  enforced  sense  of  duty!  A 
Muse  in  a  Quaker  bonnet!  A  Muse  who  quotes 
McCulloch!  Quousque  tandem?  And  the  only 
consolation  vouchsafed  us  is  that  ours  is  an  age 
of  transition.  Let  those  draw  comfort  from  the 
thought  of  belonging  to  the  miocene  period  who 
are  capable  of  such  cosmogonic  satisfactions.  To 
us,  it  is  no  relief  that  we  shall  have  our  shelf  here 
after  in  the  geologist's  cabinet;  we  cover  no  fossil 
immortality. 

Mr.  D'Israeli  began  his  literary  career  as  an 
amusing  writer  merely.  He  was  no  unmeet 
Homer  for  a  dandy  Achilles,  whose  sublime  was 
impertinence.  His  Vivian  Grey,  no  doubt,  made 
some  score  of  sophomores  intolerable  in  the  do 
mestic  circle;  his  Young  Duke  tempted  as  many 
freshmen  to  overrun  their  incomes.  Nature  is 
said  to  love  a  balance  of  qualities  or  properties, 
and  to  make  up  always  for  a  deficiency  in  one 
place  by  an  excess  in  some  other.  But  our  ex 
perience  of  mankind  would  incline  us  to  doubt 
the  possible  existence  of  so  large  a  number  of 


108  The  Round  Table 

modest  men  as  would  account  for  the  intensity  of 
Mr.  D'Israeli's  vicarious  atonement.  It  is  pain 
ful  to  conceive  of  an  amount  of  bashfulness  de 
manding  such  a  counterpoise  of  assurance.  It 
would  seem  that  he  must  have  borrowed  brass, 
that  he  must  be  supporting  his  lavish  expenditures 
acre  alieno,  when  he  assumes  the  philosopher,  and 
undertakes  to  instruct. 

His  "New  Crusade"  can  be  undertaken  by  no 
one  short  of  a  duke's  only  son.  It  would  doubt 
less  be  considered  a  highly  revolutionary  interfer 
ence  with  the  vested  rights  of  the  aristocracy  to 
allow  so  great  a  privilege  to  a  commoner.  Tan- 
cred  is  a  young  gentleman  of  extraordinary  genius 
and  acquirements,  just  coming  of  age  when  the 
novel  opens.  His  father,  the  Duke  of  Bellamont, 
wishes  him  to  enter  Parliament,  but  he  has  already 
resolved  on  undertaking  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy 
Sepulchre.  Fathers  are  among  the  inconvenient 
necessities  of  our  fallen  nature,  but  an  unmanly 
yielding  to  them  is  not  one  of  the  weaknesses  of 
the  "New  Generation."  It  is  probable  that  they 
would  not  be  put  up  with  at  all,  were  it  not  for 
certain  facilities  they  afford  as  bankers.  Young 
England  respects  the  fathers  of  the  church  vastly 
more  than  its  own.  Tancred,  of  course,  has  his 
own  way,  and  the  Duke  surrenders  at  discretion. 

The  old  painters  wrote  under  their  honest,  but 
often  unsatisfactory,  attempts  at  imitating  nature 
the  names  of  the  objects  they  intended  to  repre 
sent.  The  moderns  have  a  convenient  fetch  to 
accomplish  the  same  end,  by  means  of  descriptive 


D'Israeli  as  a  Novelist  109 

catalogues,  so  that  we  can  assure  ourselves  at  once, 
that  this  indescribable  phenomenon  is  the  "por 
trait  of  a  gentleman,"  and  that  inscrutably  dark 
canvas,  with  a  dab  of  white  putty  in  the  centre,  "is 
after  Rembrandt,"  and  can  form  our  own  con 
clusions  as  to  whether  it  is  likely  to  overtake  him. 
This  expedient,  as  it  were,  shifts  the  burden  of 
proof,  and  taxes  rather  the  imagination  and  faith 
of  the  beholder  than  the  skill  of  the  artist.  Yet 
even  here  a  kind  of  remote  verisimilitude  is  de 
manded.  Mr.  D 'Israeli  forgets  this.  He  assures 
us  that  he  is  about  to  introduce  a  most  extraordi 
nary  man,  a  kind  of  admirabler  Crichton.  We 
prepare  our  minds  adequately  for  the  encounter, 
and  then — enter  Mr.  Sidonia.  We  are  reminded 
of  a  placard  we  once  saw,  announcing  the  rather 
anomalous  exhibition  of  "Colonel  Spofford,  the 
great  Virginia  dwarf."  We  are  outraged  at  so 
Barmecide  a  fulfilment  of  a  bill  of  fare  which 
would  have  made  even  Mrs.  Glasse  search  her  cof 
fers  round.  We  had  always  conceived  of  Nature 
as  somewhat  economical  and  housewifely  in  her 
management,  expending  nothing  but  for  some 
adequate  return.  What  object  she  could  have 
had  in  endowing  Mr.  Sidonia  with  so  many  rare 
and  exceptional  qualities,  we  are  at  a  loss  to  dis 
cover.  He  talks  and  acts  very  much  like  any 
other  quite  ordinary  person.  His  vast  faculties 
seem  as  superfluous  as  the  five  horses  which  the 
circus-rider  contrives  to  use  at  the  same  time,  when 
one  would  serve  his  turn  as  well.  Shakspeare 
wrote  on  quite  another  system.  He  lets  us  know, 


110  The  Round  Table 

indeed,  that  Hamlet  is  "fat  and  scant  o'  breath," 
but  leaves  Hamlet's  genius  to  speak  for  itself. 
'Mr.  D'Israeli  is  like  the  Irish  gastronomer,  who 
invited  his  friends  to  partake  of  a  rich  soup  which 
he  was  to  concoct  out  of  a  miraculous  pebble. 
The  entertainer  liberally  placed  his  whole  mineral- 
ogical  cabinet  at  the  service  of  his  guests,  merely 
asking  of  each  in  return  a  pro  raid  contribution  of 
a  bit  of  beef,  a  trifle  of  pork,  a  few  onions,  a 
sprinkling  of  salt,  and  a  kettle  wherein  to  try  the 
thaumaturgic  experiment.  Mr.  D'Israeli's  char 
acters  are  such  wonderful  pebbles.  It  is  quite  too 
heavy  a  tax  upon  the  reader  to  expect  him  to  fill 
up,  with  their  appropriate  lights  and  shades,  the 
colossal  outlines  sketched  by  the  author. 

Tancred  is  one  of  these  remarkable  men,  but 
there  is  nothing  very  remarkable  in  what  he  says 
or  does.  In  the  same  way  that  old  Gower  enters 
as  Chorus,  and  gives  us  to  understand  that  we  are 
now  in  Tyre,  Mr.  D'Israeli  begs  to  inform  us  that 
we  are  now  to  enjoy  the  privilege  of  communion 
with  a  mind  capable  of  vast  "combinations."  But 
Tyre  turns  out  to  be  the  same  little  canvas  castle 
which  was  Tharsus  a  moment  ago,  and  the  vast 
combinations  amount  to  the  adding  of  two  and 
two,  and  producing  the  surprising  result  of  four. 
We  had  calculated  upon  ten,  at  the  very  least. 
Tancred  goes  to  the  Holy  Land  to  fathom  the 
great  "Asiatic  problem,"  carrying,  one  cannot 
help  fearing,  a  line  hardly  long  enough  for  the 
purpose.  Arrived  there,  he  pays  his  devotion  to 
the  Holy  Sepulchre,  undertakes  a  pilgrimage  to 


D'Israeli  as  a  Novelist  111 

Mount  Sinai,  is  taken  prisoner  by  a  tribe  of  Arabs 
descended  from  Rechab  (the  temperance  reform 
may  be  allegorically  typified  in  this  incident),  is 
liberated,  visits  the  Ansarey,  a  somewhat  anserine 
people  who  maintain  the  worship  of  the  Grecian 
divinities,  and  the  novel  ends  by  his  declaring  his 
love  for  the  daughter  of  his  Jew  banker  in  Pal 
estine.  The  conclusion  is  characteristic.  Mr. 
D'Israeli,  like  the  cat  transformed  into  a  lady, 
drops  all  ceremony  at  once,  and  makes  a  joyous 
spring  after  the  first  mouse  he  encounters.  The 
novelist  gets  the  better  of  the  philosopher. 

If  the  book  were  intended  as  a  satire,  the  end 
would  be  pertinent  enough.  But  in  the  present 
case,  it  is  as  if  a  man,  with  infinite  din  of  prepara 
tion,  should  set  sail  for  a  voyage  round  the  world, 
and  get  no  farther  than  a  chowder  on  Spectacle 
Island.  At  the  beginning  of  the  novel,  we  nerve 
ourselves  for  the  solution  of  the  great  Asiatic  prob 
lem,  and,  as  long  as  X  remains  an  unknown  quan 
tity,  we  feel  a  vague  sort  of  respect  for  it.  But 
when  we  arrive  at  the  end  of  the  demonstration, 
and  Mr.  D'Israeli,  after  covering  the  blackboard 
with  figures  enough  to  work  out  the  position  of 
the  new  planet,  turns  round  to  us,  and,  laying 
down  his  triumphant  chalk,  says  gravely, — "Thus, 
Gentlemen,  you  will  perceive  that  the  square  of 
the  hypotenuse,  &c.,  &c.,  Q.  E.  D.,"  we  feel  as  if 
we  might  have  found  our  way  over  the  pons  asin- 
orum  without  paying  him  so  heavy  a  fee  as 
guide.  He  finds  a  prototype  in  Lilly  the  astrol 
oger,  who,  commanding  his  own  calling,  asserts 


112  The  Bound  Table 

roundly,  that  "the  study  required  in  that  kind  of 
learning  must  be  sedentary,  of  great  reading, 
sound  judgment,  which  no  man  can  accomplish 
except  he  wholly  retire,  use  prayer,  and  accom 
pany  himself  with  angelical  visitations."  This 
impresses  us  considerably,  till  we  reflect  that  all 
this  machinery  is  put  in  motion,  not  to  produce 
a  Novum  Organon,  but  to  track  a  stolen  spoon,  or 
to  estimate  the  chances  of  recovering  an  absconded 
sixpence. 

The  value  of  any  book,  after  all,  is  not  in  the 
entertainment  it  affords  for  the  nonce,  though  this 
is  something,  but  in  the  permanent  residuum  left 
in  the  mind  after  reading.  The  times  are  too 
much  in  earnest  for  abandonment  to  simple 
recreation.  Were  this  not  so,  the  imitations  of 
Punch,  at  which,  would  answer  the  same  purpose 
as  Punch  itself,  with  which  we  laugh.  The  solid 
residuum  we  speak  of  depends  upon  the  amount 
of  thinking  which  the  book  has  demanded  of  us. 
That  which  the  old  epitaph  affirms  of  worldly 
goods  holds  true  here  also, — what  we  gave  we 
have.  The  intellect  seeks  food,  and  would  reject 
all  the  pearls  in  the  world  for  a  single  grain  of 
corn.  Art  is  only  conscious  Nature,  and  Nature 
has  always  her  ulterior  views,  creating  nothing  but 
with  an  eye  to  some  desired  result.  But  Tancred 
cannot  be  esteemed  a  work  of  art,  even  if  that  term 
may  be  justly  applied  in  the  limited  sense  of  mere 
construction.  There  is  in  it  no  great  living  idea 
which  pervades,  molds,  and  severely  limits  the 
whole.  If  we  consider  the  motive,  we  find  a 


D'Israeli  as  a  Novelist  113 

young  nobleman  so  disgusted  with  the  artificial 
and  hollow  life  around  him,  that  he  sacrifices  every 
thing  for  a  pilgrimage  to  what  he  believes  the  only 
legitimate  source  of  faith  and  inspiration.  We 
cannot,  to  be  sure,  expect  much  of  a  youth  who 
is  obliged  to  travel  a  thousand  miles  after  inspira 
tion;  but  we  might  reasonably  demand  something 
more  than  that  he  should  merely  fall  in  love,  a 
consummation  not  less  conveniently  and  cheaply 
attainable  at  home.  If  the  whole  story  be  in 
tended  for  a  satire,  the  disproportion  of  motive  to 
result  is  not  out  of  proper  keeping.  But  Mr. 
D'Israeli's  satire  is  wholly  of  the  epigrammatic 
kind,  not  of  the  epic,  and  deals  always  with  indi 
viduals,  never  with  representative  ideas.  An  epi 
gram  in  three  volumes  post  octavo  is  out  of  the 
question.  The  catastrophe  has  no  moral  or 
aesthetic  fitness.  Indeed,  there  is  no  principle  of 
cohesion  about  the  book,  if  we  except  the  covers. 
Nor  could  there  be;  for  there  is  no  one  central 
thought  around  and  toward  which  the  rest  may 
gravitate.  All  that  binds  the  incidents  together 
is  the  author's  will,  a  somewhat  inadequate  sub 
stitute  for  a  law  of  nature.  Everything  slips 
through  our  fingers  like  a  handful  of  sand,  when 
we  grasp  for  a  design.  A  true  work  of  art  is  like 
a  tree.  Its  shape,  its  law  of  growth,  its  limit,  is 
irrevocably  foreordained  in  the  seed.  There  is  no 
haphazard  in  the  matter,  from  beginning  to  end. 
The  germ  once  planted,  everything  then  tends 
simply  to  the  bringing  about  of  one  end, — perfec 
tion  in  its  kind.  The  plot  which  it  has  to  fill  out 


114  The  Sound  Table 

is  definite  and  rigid.  The  characters  and  inci 
dents  balance  each  other  like  the  branches,  and 
every  part,  from  the  minutest  fibre  of  the  root  to 
the  least  leaf,  conspires  to  nourishment  and  so  to 
beauty.  The  grand,  yet  simple  pose,  the  self- 
possession,  so  to  speak,  is  what  impresses  us  with 
a  sense  of  dignity  and  permanence.  We  come  to 
criticize  it,  and  feel  as  if  brought  before  it  to  be 
criticized  rather.  It  turns  the  tables  upon  us  and 
demands  our  credentials.  But  to  call  upon  Mr. 
D'Israeli  for  a  work  of  art  is  to  set  a  joiner  to 
build  an  oak. 

For  want  of  due  discrimination,  such  writers  as 
Mr.  D'Israeli  are  called  imaginative  authors.  It 
is  the  same  narrow  view  which  has  confined  the 
name  of  poets  to  the  makers  of  verse.  Imagina 
tion  is  truly  the  highest  exercise  of  that  august 
faculty  from  which  it  is  vulgarly  esteemed  so 
distant, — namely,  reason.  It  is  the  instinctive  (if 
we  may  so  call  it,  in  the  absence  of  any  readier 
term)  perception  of  remote  analogies;  in  other 
words,  of  the  unity  of  truth.  It  has  been  said  of 
Shakspeare,  the  greatest  imagination  in  the  history 
of  literature,  that  as  much  reasoning  faculty  was 
required  for  the  production  of  one  of  his  dramas  as 
for  that  of  the  Novum  Organon.  According  to 
our  view  of  the  matter,  Bacon's  great  work  indi 
cates  the  presence  of  an  imagination  only  second 
to  that  which  found  its  natural  outlet  in  Hamlet 
and  Lear.  Many  examples,  were  it  necessary, 
might  be  brought  to  prove  that  the  great  mathe 
matical  or  scientific  mind  is  not  so  different  in 


D'Israeli  as  a  Novelist  115 

kind  from  the  poetical  as  is  generally  taken  for 
granted.  It  will  be  enough  if  we  merely  mention 
Pascal  and  Davy.  The  theory  had  its  rise  among 
a  race  of  third-rate  rhymers,  who  found  it  con 
venient  to  persuade  the  world  that  the  payment  of 
debts  and  the  possession  of  genius  were  two 
luxuries  whose  simultaneous  enjoyment  was  im 
possible.  A  generation  which  tolerated  such  poets 
might  easily  be  put  off  with  such  crambo  stuff 
for  philosophy.  Swedenborg,  whose  imaginative 
powers  will  hardly  be  questioned,  is  just  beginning 
to  be  understood  as  the  profoundest  scientific 
writer  of  his  age.  Any  one  who  reads  him  will 
perceive  that  he  is  wholly  wanting  in  fancy.  Vol 
taire,  a  writer  of  pure  fancy,  with  no  trace  of 
imagination,  and  whose  mind  therefore  detected 
incongruities  well  enough,  but  could  never  rise  to 
the  perception  of  harmonic  laws,  naturally  applied 
to  Shakspeare  the  ludicrous  epithet  of  bizarre. 
The  same  term  would  have  served  him  equally 
well  for  the  solar  system.  Imagination  made  the 
one,  when  he  chose,  a  great  satirist.  Fancy, 
which  places  side  by  side  in  piquant  comparison 
remotely  allied  images,  not  ideas,  made  the  other, 
whether  he  would  or  no,  a  great  epigrammatist. 

Imagination  has  been  truly  and  wisely  named 
"the  shaping  spirit."  It  is  this  that  gives  unity  to 
the  otherwise  formless  mass,  and  inspires  it  with 
one  decisive  and  harmonious  will.  Without  it 
there  may  be  great  power,  but  no  unity, — only 
agglomeration.  Herein  lies  the  distinction  be 
tween  Shakspeare  and  Marlowe.  The  latter  is 


116  The  Round  Table 

commonly  labeled  by  the  critics  as  a  poet  of  wild 
and  lawless  imagination,  a  definition  which  seems 
to  us  as  idle  as  if  one  should  say  a  wild  and  lawless 
definition.  For  nothing  is  great  or  beautiful  which 
is  lawless,  and  we  must  be  careful  that  we  do  not 
name  that  so  which  is  truly  subjected  to  some  law 
so  high  or  so  refined  as  to  transcend  or  elude  the 
ordinary  apprehension.  The  imagination  acts 
within  certain  prescribed  and  absolute  limits,  and 
we  believe  that  in  all  literature  no  instance  of  its 
pure  exercise  can  be  adduced,  which  is  not  at  the 
same  time  an  example  of  the  highest  reason.  We 
do  not  mean  to  assert  a  paradox  when  we  say  that 
the  versification  of  Shakspeare  often  displays 
imagination,  while  the  sentiment  embodied  in  it  is 
purely  fanciful;  since  it  is  this  faculty  which  gives 
form,  and  subjects  expression  to  those  higher 
principles  of  order  and  unity  of  which  fancy  is 
altogether  incapable.  It  is  from  a  want  of  fixed 
ideas  as  to  the  operations  of  this  attribute  of  the 
profoundest  intellect,  that  the  fallacy  of  great  wit 
being  nearly  allied  to  madness  has  arisen.  For 
the  imagination  necessarily  oversteps  the  narrow 
limits  which  circumscribe  the  general  mind,  and 
therefore  seems  something  abnormal  and  erratic. 
A  more  exact  astronomy  teaches  that  the  long 
ellipse  of  the  comet  is  governed  by  principles  as 
exact,  and  characterized  by  periods  as  uniform,  as 
the  seemingly  more  regular  planetary  orbits. 
The  mental  organization  of  great  reformers  has 
imagination  for  its  basis,  but  in  them  it  is  rather 
a  quality  than  a  faculty,  and  they  are  convicted 


D*  Israeli  as  a  Novelist  117 

of  being  men  of  one  idea  by  a  populace  which  is 
often  not  fortunate  enough  to  possess  even  one, 
because  they  are  constantly  testing  what  is  by 
what  ought  to  be,  and  subjecting  the  fugitive 
forms  of  society,  in  which  Truth  disguises  herself 
for  a  time,  to  the  touchstone  of  absolute  reason. 

There  is  a  kind  of  criticism  which  judges  books 
by  their  own  aim,  and  which  answers  very  well 
where  the  having  any  definite  intent  may  be  pred 
icated  of  the  book  in  hand.  But  this  has  been 
perverted  from  its  true  scope  to  cover  the  defects 
of  every  false  and  empty  school  of  literature  that 
has  ever  arisen.  It  is  then  called  liberal  criticism, 
a  term  which,  like  liberal  Christianity,  often 
means  either  a  very  illiberal  criticism  or  none  at 
all.  Thus  plentifully  infused  with  water,  the  test 
is  applied,  and  accommodatingly  indicates  the 
presence  of  whatever  quality  is  desired.  It  is  like 
the  gimlet  of  Mephistopheles,  and  draws  wine  of 
any  predetermined  color  and  taste  out  of  the 
woodenest  things.  An  author  is  pronounced 
brilliant,  profound,  fascinating,  or  what  not,  and 
is  never  asked  that  most  important  question,  the 
answer  to  which  can  alone  determine  his  right  to 
be  an  author  at  all, — -Do  you  mean  anything?  No 
distinction  is  made  between  bookwrights  who  write 
because  they  choose,  and  those  who  write  because 
they  were  born  to  that  precise  avocation  and  no 
other.  If  a  book  be  merely  the  safety-valve  for 
that  superfluous  activity  which  might  have  found 
an  equally  satisfactory  outlet  in  the  manufacture 
of  a  shoe,  it  is  no  book  at  all,  and  no  criticism,  how 


118  The  Round  Table 

liberal  soever,  can  make  it  anything  other  than  so 
many  pages  of  printed  paper.  The  truth  is,  that 
the  phrase  liberal  criticism  is  purely  a  misnomer. 
There  can  be  no  such  thing,  any  more  than  there 
can  be  a  liberal  inch  or  a  liberal  ell.  Nor,  on  the 
other  hand,  can  there,  in  strict  definition,  be  such 
a  thing  as  illiberal  criticism.  If  it  incline  either 
way  from  rigid  justice,  it  is  either  eulogy  or  de 
traction.  We  might  as  truly  call  that  a  balance 
where  short  measure  is  made  full  by  a  thread  run 
through  the  counter.  Criticism  is  the  unbiased 
application  of  certain  well-defined  and  self-exist 
ent  principles  of  judgment,  and  the  first  question 
to  be  put  to  a  book  is,  whether  it  satisfies  any  want 
of  the  time,  or,  better  still,  any  want  of  human 
nature  which  knows  no  time,  or  whether  it  were 
honestly  intended  so  to  do.  They  who  cry  out  for 
liberal  criticism  are  like  those  worthy  Poundtexts 
who  went  about  proclaiming  the  accession  of  King 
Jesus  when  they  were  really  only  the  unconscious 
heralds  of  King  Log,  they,  of  course,  forming  the 
cabinet.  Cromwell  saw  their  drift  better  than 
they  did  themselves,  and  quietly  suppressed  them 
before  they  had  a  chance  to  suppress  everything 
else. 

For  our  own  part,  we  cannot  see  any  use  that 
is  to  be  answered  by  such  books  as  Tancred.  It 
is  as  dumb  as  the  poor  choked  hunchback  in  the 
Arabian  Nights,  when  we  ask  it  what  its  business 
is.  There  are  no  characters  in  it.  There  is  no 
dramatic  interest,  none  of  plot  or  incident. 
Dickens,  with  his  many  and  egregious  faults  of 


D'Israeli  as  a  Novelist  119 

style,  his  mannerisms,  and  his  sometimes  intol 
erable  descriptive  passages,  is  yet  clearly  enough 
a  great  genius,  a  something  necessary  to  the 
world,  and  the  figures  upon  his  canvas  are  such  as 
Emerson  has  aptly  termed  representative,  the 
types  of  classes,  and  no  truer  in  London  than  in 
Boston.  Mr.  D'Israeli,  when  he  undertakes  to 
draw  a  character,  sketches  some  individual  whom 
he  happens  to  like  or  dislike,  and  who  is  no  other 
wise  an  individual  than  by  the  mere  accident  of 
being  an  actually  living  person,  who  has  a  name 
on  the  door  in  some  street  or  other,  who  eats, 
drinks,  and  like  the  rest  of  us  is  subject  to  death 
and  bores.  For  example,  we  perceive  that  Mr. 
Vavasour  is  intended  for  Mr.  R.  M.  Milnes,  an 
excellent  person  and  no  mean  poet,  but  in  no  way 
so  peculiar  and  distinct  that  this  sketch  of  him 
presents  any  definite  image,  except  to  those  who 
chance  to  know  the  individual  intended. 

In  Tancred  there  are  one  or  two  excellent  land 
scapes,  and  some  detached  thoughts  worth  remem 
bering.  There  are  a  vast  many  girds  at  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  who,  after  all  is  said,  has  shown  him 
self  capable  of  one  thing  beyond  Mr.  D'Israeli's 
reach, — success,  which  always  gives  a  man  some 
hold  or  other,  however  questionable,  upon  pos 
terity,  and  arms  him  in  mail  of  proof  against  sar 
casm.  Mr.  D'Israeli  uses  him  as  a  militia  com 
pany  sometimes  serve  an  unpopular  politician. 
He  sets  up  a  rude  likeness  of  him  for  a  practising 
target;  but,  no  matter  how  many  balls  may  per 
forate  the  wooden  caricature,  its  original  still 


120  The  Round  Table 

walks  about  unharmed,  and  with  whatever 
capacity  a  politician  has  for  enjoying  life  un- 
diminished.  We  are  introduced  to  some  Arabs 
who  talk  very  much  in  the  style  of  Mr.  Cooper's 
red  men.  It  seems  to  be  a  peculiarity  of  savages 
(if  we  may  say  it  without  derogating  from  the 
claims  of  civilization,)  to  utter  a  variety  of  noth 
ings  in  a  very  grave  and  sententious  way.  These, 
at  least,  are  as  solemn  and  as  stupid  as  allegories  on 
the  banks  of  the  Nile,  or  anywhere  else.  One  of 
them  recites  a  poem  which  we  fancy  will  never  be 
translated  to  a  place  among  the  Moallakat.  But 
we  cannot  undertake  to  give  a  sketch  of  the  prin 
cipal  events  in  Tancred.  Such  attempts  result 
usually  in  something  like  the  good  monk's  epitome 
of  Homer  in  the  Epistolce  Obscurorum  Virorum. 
In  this  particular  case,  whenever  we  attempt  to 
call  up  an  individual  impression  of  the  book,  our 
memory  presents  us  with  nothing  but  a  painfully 
defiant  blur.  Moralists  tell  us,  that  every  man  is 
bound  to  sustain  his  share  in  the  weight  of  the 
world's  sorrows  and  trials,  and  we  honestly  feel 
as  if  we  had  done  our  part  by  reading  Tancred. 
If  our  readers  have  faithfully  got  to  the  end  of 
our  article,  we  cry  quits. 


THE  NEW  TIMON 


"THE  NEW  TIMON"  1 

1 

FLETCHER  of  Saltoun's  apothegm 
would  hardly  answer  for  our  latitude; 
song  has  no  super-legislative  force 
among  us.  The  walls  of  one  of  our 
great  political  parties  were  thought  to  have  risen 
from  their  ruins  a  few  years  ago,2  like  those  of 
Thebes,  to  the  sound  of  singing;  but  this  Amphi- 
onic  mason-work  was  found  not  to  resist  our 
changeful  climate.  Our  national  melodies  are  of 
African  descent.  If  our  brains  are  stolen,  it  will 
never  be  through  our  ears;  the  Sirens  had  sung 
in  vain  to  a  Nantucket  Ulysses.  We  remember 
a  nomadic  minstrel,  a  dweller  in  tents,  who  picked 
up  a  scanty  subsistence  by  singing  "Proud  Dacre 
sailed  the  sea,"  and  "The  Hunters  of  Kentucky," 
on  election  days,  and  at  Commencements  and 
musters.  But  he  was  merely  the  satellite  to  a 
dwarf,  and  the  want  of  the  aspirate  betrayed  a 
Transatlantic  origin.  Moreover,  only  slender- 
witted  persons  were  betrayed  into  the  extravagance 
of  the  initiatory  ninepence,  the  shrewder  citizens 
contenting  themselves  with  what  gratuitous  music 
leaked  through  the  rents  in  the  canvas. 

Mr.  Barlow,  we  believe,  had  a  beatific  vision  of 
the  nine  immigrant  Muses,  somewhere  on  the  top 

1  The  New  Timon,  a  Romance  of  London.     [By  Bulwer-Lytton. 
—ED.] 

2  Written  in  1847.— ED. 

123 


124  The  Round  Table 

of  the  Alleghany  mountains.  A  judicious  selec 
tion  of  place; — for  only  in  some  such  inaccessible 
spot  would  they  be  safe  from  the  constable. 
Without  question,  a  ship's  captain  importing  nine 
ladies  with  so  scanty  a  wardrobe  would  be  com 
pelled  to  give  bonds.  With  us  the  band  has  no 
chartered  sacredness;  cotton  and  the  stocks  refuse 
to  budge  at  his  vaticinations.  The  newspapers 
are  our  Westminster  Abbey,  in  whose  Poets' 
Corner  the  fugitive  remains  of  our  verse-makers 
slumber  inviolate, — a  sacred  privacy,  uninvaded 
save  by  the  factory-girl  or  the  seamstress.  The 
price-current  is  our  Paradise  of  Daintie  Devyces; 
and  that  necromancer,  who  might  fill  his  pockets 
by  contracting  to  bring  back  Captain  Kidd  to  tell 
us  where  he  buried  treasure,  would  starve,  were 
he  to  promise  merely 

"To  call  up  him  who  left  half  told 
The  story  of  Cambuscan  bold." 

It  is  not  that  we  are  an  antipoetical  people. 
Our  surveyors  might  fix  that  stigma  upon  us,  by 
whose  means  Graylock  becomes  Saddle-mountain 
on  the  maps,  and  Tahconic  is  converted  from  his 
paganism,  and  undergoes  baptism  as  Mount  Ever 
ett.  All  the  world  over,  the  poet  is  not  what  he 
was  in  ruder  times.  If  he  ever  unite,  as  formerly, 
the  bardic  and  sacerdotal  offices,  that  conjunction 
forebodes  nothing  graver  than  the  publication  of 
a  new  hymn-book.  The  sanctity  of  the  character 
is  gone;  the  garret  is  no  safer  than  the  first-floor. 
Every  dun  and  tipstaff  sets  at  naught  the  prece- 


"The  New  Timon"  125 

dent  of  the  great  Emathian  conqueror.  Poetry 
once  concerned  itself  with  the  very  staple  of 
existence.  JSTow  it  is  a  thing  apart.  The  only 
time  we  were  ever  conscious  that  the  Muse  did 
still  sometimes  cast  a  halo  round  every-day  life 
was  when  we  heard  the  "Village  Blacksmith"  con 
gratulating  himself,  that  Longfellow  had  had  his 
smithy  "drawed  as  nateral  as  a  picter." 

Many  respectable  persons  are  greatly  exercised 
in  spirit  at  the  slow  growth  of  what  they  are 
pleased  to  call  a  national  literature.  They  con 
jecture  of  the  forms  of  our  art  from  the  shape  of 
our  continent,  reversing  the  Platonic  method. 
They  deduce  a  literary  from  a  geographical  orig 
inality;  a  new  country,  therefore  new  thoughts. 
A  reductio  ad  absurdum  would  carry  this  principle 
to  the  extent  of  conforming  an  author's  mind  to 
the  house  he  lived  in.  These  enthusiasts  wonder, 
that  our  mountains  have  not  yet  brought  forth  a 
poet,  forgetting  that  a  mouse  was  the  result  of  the 
only  authentic  mountainous  parturition  on  record. 
Others,  more  hopeful,  believe  the  continent  to  be 
at  least  seven  months  gone  with  a  portentous  min 
strel,  who,  according  to  the  most  definite  augury 
we  have  seen,  shall  "string"  our  woods,  mountains, 
lakes,  and  rivers,  and  then  "wring"  from  them 

(no  milder  term,  or  less  suggestive  of  the  laundry, 
will  serve)  notes  of  "autochthonic  significance." 
We  have  heard  of  one  author,  who  thinks  it  quite 
needless  to  be  at  the  pains  of  a  jury  of  matrons 

on  the  subject,  as  he  makes  no  doubt  that  the 
child  of  Destiny  is  already  born,  and  that  he  has 


126  The  Round  Table 

discovered  in  himself  the  genuine   Terrce  Filius. 

Never  was  there  so  much  debate  of  a  national 
literature  as  during  the  period  immediately  suc 
ceeding  our  Revolution,  and  never  did  the  Titan 
of  native  song  make  such  efforts  to  get  himself 
born  as  then.  Hopkinson,  Freneau,  Paine,  and 
Barlow  were  the  result  of  that  travail.  It  was  not 
the  fault  of  the  country;  it  was  even  newer  then 
than  now,  and  its  shape  (if  that  was  to  be  effectual 
in  the  matter)  was  identical.  Nor  was  zeal  or 
pains  wanting.  It  is  believed  that  the  "Conquest 
of  Canaan"  and  the  "Vision  of  Columbus"  were 
read  by  authentic  men  and  women.  The  same 
patriotism  which  refused  the  tea  swallowed  the 
poetry.  The  same  hardy  spirit,  the  same  patient 
endurance,  which  brought  the  Pilgrims  to  Ply 
mouth  rock,  was  not  yet  gone  out  of  the  stock. 
A  nation  which  had  just  gone  through  a  seven 
years'  war  could  undergo  a  great  deal. 

But  we  must  come  sooner  or  later  to  the  con 
clusion,  that  literature  knows  no  climatic  dis 
tinctions  of  that  external  kind  which  are  presup 
posed  in  this  clamor  for  a  national  literature. 
The  climate  in  which  the  mind  of  an  author 
habitually  dwells — whether  it  be  that  of  Greece, 
Asia,  Italy,  Germany,  or  England — molds  the 
thought  and  the  expression.  But  that  which 
makes  poetry  poetry,  and  not  prose,  is  the  same 
everywhere.  The  curse  of  Babel  fell  not  upon  the 
muse.  Climate  gives  inexorable  laws  to  archi 
tecture,  and  all  importations  from  abroad  are  con 
traband  of  nature,  sure  to  be  satirized  by  whatever 


"The  New  Timon"  127 

is  native  to  the  soil.  There  is  but  one  sky  of  song, 
and  the  growth  of  the  tropics  will  bear  the  open 
air  of  the  pole.  For  man  is  the  archetype  of 
poetry.  Its  measure  and  proportion,  as  Vitru- 
vius  reports  of  the  Doric  pillar,  are  borrowed  of 
him.  Natural  scenery  has  little  hand  in  it, 
national  peculiarities  none  at  all.  Not  Simois  or 
Scamander,  but  Helen,  Priam,  Andromache,  give 
divinity  to  the  tale  of  Troy.  Dante's  Italicism  is 
his  lame  foot.  Shakspeare  would  fare  ill,  were 
we  to  put  him  upon  proof  of  his  Englishry.  So 
homogeneous  is  the  structure  of  the  mind,  that  Sir 
William  Jones  conceived  Odin  and  Fo  to  be 
identical. 

There  is  no  fear  but  we  shall  have  a  national 
literature  soon  enough.  Meanwhile,  we  may  be 
sure  that  all  attempts  at  the  forcible  manufacture 
of  such  a  product  (especially  out  of  physical  ele 
ments)  will  be  as  fruitless  as  the  opus  magnum  of 
the  alchemists.  The  cunning  of  man  can  only 
adroitly  combine  the  materials  lying  ready  to  his 
hand.  It  has  never  yet  compassed  the  creation  of 
any  seed,  be  it  never  so  small.  As  a  nation,  we 
are  yet  too  full  of  hurry  and  bustle.  The  perfectly 
balanced  tree  can  grow  only  in  the  wind-bound 
shelter  of  the  valley.  Our  national  eagerness  for 
immediate  results  infests  our  literature.  We  wish 
to  taste  the  fruit  of  our  culture,  and  as  yet  plant 
not  that  slower  growth  which  ripens  for  posterity. 
The  mental  characteristic  of  the  pioneer  has  be 
come  engrained  in  us,  outliving  the  necessity  which 
begot  it.  Everywhere  the  blackened  stumps  of 


128  The  Round  Table 

the  clearing  jut  out  like  rocks  amid  the  yellow 
waves  of  our  harvest.  We  have  not  learned  to 
wait;  our  chief  aim  is  to  produce,  and  we  are  more 
careful  of  quantity  than  quality.  We  cannot 
bring  ourselves  to  pinch  off  a  part  of  the  green 
fruit,  that  the  ripe  may  be  more  perfect.  To  be 
left  behind  is  the  opprobrium;  we  desire  an  imme 
diate  effect.  Hence,  a  large  part  of  that  mental 
energy,  which  would  else  find  its  natural  bent  in 
literary  labor,  turns  to  the  lecture-room  or  the  cau 
cus,  or  mounts  that  ready-made  rostrum  of  dema 
gogues,  the  stump.  If  any  man  think  he  has  an 
errand  for  the  general  ear,  he  runs  at  full  speed 
with  it,  and  delivers  such  fragments  as  he  has 
breath  left  to  utter.  If  we  adopt  a  Coptic  emblem, 
and  paste  it  on  the  front  of  our  pine-granite  pro- 
pylsea,  it  must  have  wings,  implying  speed.  That 
symbol  of  wiser  meaning,  with  finger  upon  lip,  is 
not  for  us.  We  break  our  eggs,  rather  than  await 
the  antiquated  process  of  incubation.  We  pull  up 
what  we  have  planted,  to  see  if  it  have  taken  root. 
We  fell  the  primeval  forest,  and  thrust  into  the 
ground  a  row  of  bean-poles  for  shade.  We  can 
not  spare  the  time  to  sleep  upon  anything ;  we  must 
be  through  by  daylight.  Our  boys  debate  the 
tariff  and  the  war.  Scarce  yet  beyond  the  lacteal 
stage,  they  leave  hoop,  and  ball,  and  taw,  to  dis 
cuss  the  tea  and  coffee  tax. 

We  find  talk  cheaper  than  writing,  and  both 
easier  than  thinking.  We  talk  everlastingly;  our 
magazines  are  nothing  but  talk,  and  that  of  a  flac 
cid  and  Polonian  fibre.  The  Spartans  banished 


"The  New  Timon"  129 

the  unfortunate  man  who  boasted  that  he  could 
talk  all  day.  With  us  he  has  been  sure  of  Con 
gress  or  the  Cabinet.  No  petty  African  king  is 
fonder  of  palaver  than  the  sovereign  people.  Our 
national  bird  is  of  no  kin  to  the  falcon  of  the 
Persian  poet,  whose  taciturnity  made  him  of  more 
esteem  than  the  nightingale.  We  are  always  in 
haste;  we  build  a  railroad  from  the  cradle  to  the 
grave.  Our  children  cannot  spare  time  to  learn 
spelling;  they  must  take  the  short  cut  of  phonog 
raphy.  In  architecture,  we  cannot  abide  the  slow 
teaching  of  the  fitness  of  things;  we  parody  the 
sacred  growth  of  ages  with  our  inch-board  fragil 
ities, 

"Their   rafters    sprouting   on    the    shady    side," 

and  every  village  boasts  its  papier-mache  cathedral. 
Our  railroad-cars  are  our  best  effort  in  this  kind 
yet, — the  emblems  of  hurry.  The  magnetic  tele 
graph  is  of  our  invention,  a  message  upon  which, 
traveling  westward,  outstrips  Time  himself.  The 
national  trait  is  aptly  symbolized  by  a  gentleman 
we  know  of,  who  has  erected  his  own  funeral  monu 
ment  (what  a  titbit  for  honest  old  Weever!)  and 
inscribed  upon  it  an  epitaph  of  his  own  compos 
ing,  leaving  vacant  only  the  date  of  his  demise. 
This  is  to  be  beforehand  with  Death  himself.  We 
remember  only  the  occasio  celeris  and  not  the  ars 
longa  of  the  adage.  Hence  a  thousand  sciolists 
for  one  scholar,  a  hundred  improvisators  for  one 
poet.  Everything  with  us  ripens  so  rapidly,  that 
nothing  of  ours  seems  very  old  but  our  boys. 


130  The  Bound  Table 

A  sandy  diffuseness  of  style  among  our  speak 
ers  and  writers  is  the  result  of  this  hurry.  We 
try  to  grasp  a  substantial  handful  here  and  there, 
and  it  runs  through  our  fingers.  How  our  legis 
lators  contrive  to  sit  out  each  other's  speeches  we 
could  never  conceive.  Who  reads  those  intermin 
able  debates  is  a  question  of  harder  solution  than 
what  song  the  Sirens  sang.  In  our  callower  years, 
we  sit  down  beside  them,  like  the  clown  at  the  riv 
er's  edge.  But  we  soon  learn  the  labitur  et  labetur. 
Providence,  which  has  made  nothing  that  is  not 
food  for  something  else,  has  doubtless  so  consti 
tuted  some  systems  as  that  they  can  devour  and 
digest  these.  The  constituency  of  Buncombe,  if 
it  find  time  to  read  all  that  is  addressed  to  it,  must 
be  endowed  with  an  unmatched  longevity.  It 
must  be  a  community  of  oldest  inhabitants.  Yet, 
with  all  this  tendency  to  prosing,  we  love  concen 
tration,  epigrammatic  brevity,  antithesis.  Hence 
the  potency  of  phrases  among  us ;  a  nimble  phrase 
in  a  trice  trips  up  our  judgment;  "masterly  in 
activity,"  "conquering  a  peace,"  "our  country 
right  or  wrong,"  and  the  like.  Talleyrand's  plan 
for  settling  the  Restoration  on  a  firm  basis  would 
have  done  for  us: — "C'est  bien,  c'est  tres  bien,  et 
tout  ce  qu'il  faut  maintenant,  ce  sont  les  feux 
d'artifice  et  un  bon  mot  pour  le  peuple." 

Under  such  circumstances,  we  need  hardly  ex 
pect  a  sudden  crop  of  epics.  We  must  have  some 
thing  that  we  can  bolt.  And  we  need  not  trouble 
ourselves  about  the  form  or  the  growth  of  our 
literature.  The  law  of  demand  and  supply  is  as 


"The  New  Timon"  131 

inexorable  here  as  in  every  thing  else.  The  forc 
ing  system,  we  may  be  sure,  is  out  of  place.  Art 
cannot  make  heartwood  under  glass.  Above  all, 
let  not  our  young  authors  be  seduced  into  the 
belief,  that  there  can  be  any  nationality  in  the 
great  leading  ideas  of  art.  The  mind  has  one 
shape  in  the  Esquimaux  and  the  Anglo-Saxon, 
and  that  shape  it  will  strive  to  impress  on  its 
creations.  If  we  evaporate  all  that  is  watery,  arid 
the  mere  work  of  absorption,  in  the  mythologies 
and  early  histories  of  the  different  races  of  men, 
we  shall  find  one  invariable  residuum  at  bottom. 
The  legendary  age  of  Greece  may  find  a  parallel 
in  our  own  recent  history,  and  "Old  Put,"  the 
wolf-killer,  at  whose  door  all  the  unfathered  der 
ring-does  of  the  time  are  laid,  is  no  mean  Yankee 
translation  of  Theseus.  Doubtless,  a  freer  and 
more  untrammeled  spirit  will  be  the  general  char 
acteristic  of  our  literature,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped 
that  it  will  get  its  form  and  pressure  before  our 
social  life  begins  (as  it  inevitably  must)  to  fence 
itself  from  the  approaches  of  license  behind  a 
stricter  and  more  rigid  conventionality.  Where 
external  distinctions  are  wanting,  men  intrench 
themselves  the  more  deeply  in  forms.  When  this 
reaction  makes  itself  felt  in  our  literature,  let  us 
hope  to  find  the  works  of  our  authors  as  consci 
entious  in  finish,  as  they  should  be  bold  in  design 
and  outline.  As  for  expecting  that  our  mountains 
and  lakes  and  forests  should  inoculate  our  litera 
ture  with  their  idiosyncrasies,  we  may  as  reason 
ably  look  to  find  the  mental  results  of  our  corduroy 


132  The  Round  Table 

roads  there,  a  speculation  which  might  confirm 
itself  by  certain  metres  we  have  lately  been  favored 
with  by  our  poets.  The  "surface  of  the  country," 
of  which  we  used  to  read  so  much  in  our  geogra 
phies,  never  made  and  never  marred  a  poet. 
There  are  mountains  as  good  as  Chimborazo  and 
Popocatapetl  in  the  poet's  mind.  Were  Skiddaw 
and  Ben  Lomond  the  lay-figures  from  which  Bun- 
yan  painted  his  Delectable  Mountains?  Or  was 
the  dead  marsh-level  of  parts  of  the  Excursion  an 
infection  from  those  hills  among  which  Words 
worth  has  spent  his  life?  Shakspeare  has  done 
better  than  travel  in  Egypt  when  he  said, — 

"Ye  pyramids,  built  up  with  newer  might, 
To  me  are  nothing  novel,  nothing  strange; 
Ye  are  but  dressings  of  a  former  sight." 

Hitherto  our  literature  has  been  chiefly  imi 
tative  and  artificial;  we  have  found  no  better 
names  for  our  authors  than  the  American  Scott, 
the  American  Mrs.  Hemans,  the  American 
Wordsworth.  There  is  nothing  to  fear  from  too 
great  license  as  yet.  At  present,  every  English 
author  can  see  a  distorted  reflection  of  himself 
here, — a  something  like  the  eidolons  of  the  Hom 
eric  Hades,  not  ghosts  precisely,  but  unsubstantial 
counterparts.  He  finds  himself  come  round 
again,  the  Atlantic  Ocean  taking  the  function  of 
the  Platonic  year.  Our  authors  are  the  best 
critics  of  their  brethren  (or  parents)  on  the  other 
side  of  the  water,  catching  as  they  do  only  what 
is  exaggerated  in  them.  We  are  in  need  of  a 


"The  New  Timon"  133 

literary  declaration  of  independence;  our  litera 
ture  should  no  longer  be  colonial. 

Let  us  not  be  understood  as  chiming  in  with 
that  foolish  cry  of  the  day,  that  authors  should 
not  profit  by  example  and  precedent, — a  cry 
which  generally  originates  with  some  hardy  imi 
tator,  the  "stop  thief!"  with  which  he  would  fain 
distract  attention  from  himself.  It  is  the  tower- 
stamp  of  an  original  mind,  that  it  gives  an  awak 
ening  impulse  to  other  original  minds.  Memory 
was  the  mother  of  the  Muses.  Montaigne  says, 
"In  my  country,  when  they  would  decipher  a  man 
that  has  no  sense,  they  say  such  a  one  has  no  mem 
ory."  But  to  imitate  the  works  of  another  is  not 
to  profit  by  them.  It  is  making  them  our  dun 
geon.  It  is  better  to  smell  of  the  lamp  than  of 
the  library.  Yet  the  most  original  writers  have 
begun  in  some  sort  as  imitators,  and  necessarily 
so.  They  must  first  learn  to  speak  by  watching 
the  lips  and  practising  the  tones  of  others.  This 
once  acquired,  the  native  force  within  masters  and 
molds  the  instrument.  Shakspeare's  early  poems 
have  the  trick  and  accent  of  Spenser.  Milton's 
Comus  was  written  with  a  quill  from,  the  Swan  of 
Avon's  wing,  dipped  in  Jonson's  ink.  But  even 
the  imitations  of  an  original  mind  give  no  small 
oracle  of  originality.  The  copyist  mimics  man 
nerisms  only.  Like  Crashaw's  minstrel, 

"From  this  to  that,  from  that  to  this,  he  flies." 

The  original  mind  is  always  consistent  with  itself. 
Michel   Angelo,   cramped  by  the  peculiar  shape 


134  The  Round  Table 

of  a  piece  of  marble  which  another  sculptor  had 
roughed  out  for  a  conception  of  his  own,  conquered 
something  characteristic  out  of  that  very  restraint, 
and  the  finished  statue  proclaimed  its  author. 
The  poet,  like  the  sculptor,  works  in  one  material, 
and  there,  in  the  formless  quarry  of  the  language, 
lie  the  divine  shapes  of  gods  and  heroes  awaiting 
the  master's  evocation. 

The  republication  of  a  poem  which  has  made  a 
sensation  in  England  is  not  without  its  importance 
to  us.  We  read  of  an  ancient  nation  who,  every 
Xew  Year,  made  clean  hearths,  and  then  rekindled 
them  with  fire  sent  round  by  their  king  for  that 
end.  A  rite  not  unlike  this  in  form,  though 
widely  different  in  meaning,  is  still  maintained  by 
many  of  our  authors.  So  soon  as  a  new  light 
makes  its  appearance  in  England,  every  native 
rushlight  is  ceremoniously  extinguished,  and  the 
smoking  wick  set  once  more  ablaze  by  the  stolen 
touch  of  that  more  prosperous  foreign  flame. 
From  the  avatar  of  this  Christmas  we  cannot  re 
motely  conjecture  in  what  shape  an  author  shall 
choose  to  appear  at  the  next.  But  the  book, 
which  we  have  made  the  text  of  our  somewhat 
erratic  discourse,  is  not  only  worthy  of  notice,  in 
asmuch  as  it  may  serve  as  a  model,  but  still  more 
from  its  own  intrinsic  merits,  and  because  it  is  a 
strong  protest  against  the  form  and  spirit  of  the 
poetry  now  in  vogue.  It  once  more  unburies  the 
hatchet  of  the  ancient  feud  between  wrhat  are 
called  the  "natural"  and  "artificial"  schools. 

The  dispute  in  this  case,  as  in  most  others,  has 


"The  New  Timon"  135 

concerned  itself  chiefly  about  words.  An  exact 
definition  of  the  terms  used  by  the  contending 
parties  would  have  been  the  best  flag  of  truce. 
Grant  the  claims  of  the  disciples  of  Pope,  and  you 
blot  out  at  once  the  writings  of  the  greatest  poets 
that  ever  lived.  Grant  those  of  the  opposite 
party,  and  you  deny  to  Pope  any  merit  whatever. 
The  cardinal  point  of  the  whole  quarrel  lies  in  the 
meaning  attached  to  the  single  word  poet.  The 
most  potent  champion  of  Popery  in  our  day  gave 
by  his  practice  the  direct  lie  to  his  assumed  theory. 
The  Age  of  Bronze,  the  only  poem  which  he  wrote 
professedly  upon  this  model,  is  unreadable  from 
sheer  dullness.  His  prose  letters  in  the  Bowles 
controversy  were  far  more  in  Pope's  vein  and 
spirit. 

The  author  of  the  New  Timon  avows  himself 
a  follower  of  Pope.  We  shall  by-and-by  have 
occasion  to  try  him  by  his  own  standard.  In  the 
meantime,  we  shall  barely  remark,  that  his  allu 
sions  to  Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Keats  are 
presumptuous  and  in  bad  taste.  The  fact  that  he 
misspells  the  name  of  one  of  these  poets  argues 
either  a  very  petty  affectation,  or  a  shameful  un- 
familiarity  with  what  he  pretends  to  criticize. 

The  truth  is,  that  Pope's  merit  lies  in  the  con- 
cinnity  and  transparency  of  his  style.  It  is  this, 
rather  than  the  sentiment,  which  charms.  Thou 
sands  of  readers  find  no  want  of  orthodoxy  in 
the  Essay  on  Man,  who  would  recoil  in  horror 
from  the  rough  draught  of  Bolingbroke,  on  which 
it  was  based.  Fancy,  purity  of  diction,  concise- 


136  The  Round  Table 

ness,  unfailing  wit,  all  these  are  Pope's,  and  they 
have  given  him  immortality.  But  these  are  not 
essentially  the  attributes  of  a  poet.  In  imagina 
tion,  the  crowning  faculty  of  the  poet,  nay,  the 
one  quality  which  emphatically  distinguishes  him 
as  such,  Pope  is  wanting.  A  single  example  of 
the  pure  exercise  of  this  faculty  is  not  to  be  found 
in  his  works. 

A  profusion  of  ignorance  and  bad  temper  have 
been  lavished  on  this  topic.  Had  the  contro 
versy  been  understandingly  carried  on,  there  would 
have  been  no  occasion  for  ill-feeling.  One  chief 
blunder  has  been  the  defining  of  authors  as  belong 
ing  to  a  certain  school  because  they  happened  to 
be  addicted  to  the  use  of  a  measure  consisting  of 
a  certain  number  of  feet,  yet  not  the  less  variable 
on  that  account.  Dryden,  Pope,  and  Goldsmith 
are  commonly  named  together, — authors  as  dis 
similar  as  Chaucer  and  Racine.  Crabbe,  Camp 
bell,  and  Rogers  have  all  three  used  the  same 
measure,  yet  are  wholly  unlike  each  other  and  un 
like  their  three  predecessors  above  named. 
Byron,  who  also  used  the  "English  Heroic"  (as  it 
is  commonly  called)  in  the  Corsair  and  some  other 
poems,  presents  still  another  totally  distinct 
variety. 

What,  then,  is  the  secret  of  that  predilection  in 
the  minds  of  many  to  that  kind  of  writing  which 
is  rather  vaguely  defined  to  be  "of  the  Pope 
school?"  Many,  no  doubt,  adhere  to  it  on  the 
ground  of  its  age  and  respectability, — a  prejudice 
which  Pope  himself  has  admirably  satirized. 


"The  New  Timon"  137 

Others  commend  it  on  the  score  of  its  being  easily 
comprehensible.  Others  again  are  charmed  with 
what  they  esteem  the  grace,  precision,  and  finish 
of  its  metre. 

It  is  unquestionably  the  primle  merit  of  style, 
that  it  conveys  the  author's  ideas  exactly  and 
clearly.  But  after  all,  the  ideas  to  be  conveyed 
are  of  more  importance  than  the  vehicle,  and  it  is 
one  thing  to  see  distinctly  what  they  are,  and 
another  to  comprehend  them.  Undoubtedly  the 
first  requisite  is  that  they  be  worth  comprehend 
ing.  Once  establish  the  principle,  that  easiness  of 
comprehension  is  the  chief  merit  in  literature,  and 
the  lowest  order  of  minds  will  legislate  for  the 
exercise  of  that  faculty  which  should  give  law  to 
the  highest.  Every  new  book  would  come  to  us 
with  the  ambiguous  compliment,  that  it  was 
adapted  to  the  meanest  capacity.  We  have  never 
been  able  to  appreciate  with  any  tolerable  dis 
tinctness  the  grounds  of  that  complacent  superi 
ority  implied  in  the  confession  of  not  being  able 
to  understand  an  author,  though  we  have  fre 
quently  seen  airs  assumed  on  the  strength  of  that 
acknowledged  incapacity.  One  has  a  vision  of  the 
lame,  halt,  and  blind  dropping  compassionate 
fourpences  into  the  hats  of  their  unmutilated  fel 
low-citizens.  Apelles  judged  rightly  in  pro 
nouncing  Alexander's  horse  a  better  critic  than 
his  master.  The  equine  was  more  liberal  than 
the  imperial  appreciation. 

The  merit  of  Pope  is  wholly  of  the  intellect. 
There  is  nothing  in  him  of  that  finer  instinct  which 


138  The  Round  Table 

characterizes  all  those  who,  by  universal  consent, 
have  been  allowed  as  great  poets,  and  have  received 
the  laurel  from  posterity.  His  instinct  is  rather 
that  of  a  man  of  taste  than  of  genius.  In  reading 
Shakspeare,  we  do  not  concern  ourselves  as  to  the 
particular  shape  which  his  thoughts  assume.  That 
is  wholly  a  secondary  affair.  We  should  as  soon 
think  of  criticizing  the  peculiar  form  of  a  tree  or 
a  fern.  Though  we  may  not  be  able  to  codify  the 
law  which  governs  them,  we  cannot  escape  a  feel 
ing  of  the  harmony  and  fitness  resulting  from,  an 
obedience  to  that  law.  There  is  a  necessity  for 
their  being  of  that  precise  mold,  and  no  other, 
which  peremptorily  overrules  all  cavil.  With 
Pope,  on  the  contrary,  the  form  is  what  first  de 
mands  notice.  It  is  here  that  the  poet  has  put 
forth  his  power  and  displayed  his  skill.  He  makes 
verses  by  a  voluntary  exercise  of  the  intellect, 
rather  than  from  the  overflow  of  the  creative 
power.  We  feel  that  he  had  his  choice  between 
several  forms  of  expression,  and  was  not  neces 
sarily  constrained  to  the  one  he  has  selected.  His 
verses  please  us,  as  any  display  of  mental  skill 
and  vigor  never  fails  to  do.  The  pleasure  he 
gives  us  is  precisely  similar  to  that  we  derive  from 
reading  the  Spectator,  and  is  in  both  cases  the 
result  of  identical  causes.  His  apothegms  are 
wholly  of  the  intellect,  and  that,  too,  of  the  intel 
lect  applied  to  the  analysis  of  artificial  life.  He 
does  not,  according  to  Bacon's  definition  of  poetry, 
"conform  the  shows  of  things  to  the  desires  of  the 
soul."  Yet  he  dwells  in  the  shows  of  things  rather 


"The  New  Timon"  139 

than  in  the  substances,  and  conforms  them,  some 
times,  despotically,  to  the  necessities  of  his  satire. 
He  jeers  and  flouts  the  artificial  life  which  he  sees. 
He  mocks  at  it,  as  Lucian  derided  Zeus, — an  athe 
ist  to  the  gods  of  the  day,  with  no  settled  belief 
in  any  higher  gods.  He  does  not  confute  the 
artificial  by  comparison  with  any  abiding  real. 
He  impales  all  contemporary  littlenesses  upon  the 
sharp  needles  of  his  wit,  and  in  his  poems,  as  in  an 
entomological  cabinet,  we  see  preserved  all  the 
ugly  insects  of  his  day.  He  does  not  tacitly  re 
buke  meanness  by  looking  over  it  to  the  image  of 
a  perennial  magnanimity.  He  does  not  say 
sternly,  "Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan!"  but  mis 
chievously  affixes  a  stinging  epigram  to  horns, 
hoof,  and  tail,  and  sends  Beelzebub  away  ridic 
ulous.  His  inkstand  was  his  arsenal,  but  it  was 
not  his  to  use  it  in  Luther's  hearty  catapultic 
fashion. 

We  do  not  so  much  commend  the  New  Timon, 
then,  as  being  a  return  to  purer  models,  but  as  a 
protest  against  the  excesses  into  which  the  pre 
vailing  school  had  degenerated.  Latterly,  poetry 
seems  to  have  deserted  the  strong  and  palpable 
motions  of  the  common  heart,  and  to  have  devoted 
itself  to  the  ecstatic  exploration  of  solitary  nerves, 
— the  less  tangible,  the  better.  The  broad  view 
attainable  from  those  two  peaks  of  Parnassus, 
which  Sir  John  Denham  sensibly  defined  to  be 
"Nature  and  Skill,"  seems  to  be  well-nigh  neg 
lected.  .  Our  young  poets,  instead  of  that  healthy 
glow  of  cheek  earned  only  by  conversation  with 


140  The  Round  Table 

the  robust  air  of  the  summit,  and  the  labor  inci 
dent  to  the  rugged  ascent,  seem  to  value  them 
selves  upon  their  paleness,  and  to  think  him  the 
better  man  who  has  spent  most  time  in  peering 
dizzily  down  the  dark  rifts  and  chasms  round  the 
base  of  the  mountain,  or  in  gazing  into  the  poten 
tial  millstones  of  its  solid  rock.  The  frailer  the 
tissue  of  the  feeling,  the  greater  the  merit  in  trac 
ing  it  to  its  extremes, — a  spiderlike  accomplish 
ment  at  best.  Their  philosophy  (if  we  call  that 
so  which  they  esteem  as  such,  and  which  is  cer 
tainly  nothing  else)  stands  in  grave  need  of  Phil- 
otas's  leaden  soles.  One  might  almost  expect  to 
see  them  blown  out  of  existence  by  the  incautious 
puffs  of  their  own  publisher  or  clique.  The  far 
ther  the  poet  can  put  himself  out  of  the  common, 
the  more  admirable  is  he.  The  reflections  of 
Perillus  in  his  bull,  of  Regulus  in  his  hogshead,  or 
of  Clarence  in  his  malmsey-butt,  would  furnish 
an  ample  stock  in  trade  to  any  young  poet.  Or 
a  nearer  approach  to  nature  and  the  interests  of 
every-day  life  m,ight  be  found  in  the  situation  of 
Terance  McHugh,  buried  alive  at  the  bottom  of  a 
well,  and  so  finding  it  to  be  the  residence  of  at 
least  one  unquestionable  verity. 

Mystery,  too,  has  become  a  great  staple  with 
our  poets.  Everything  must  be  accounted  for  by 
something  more  unaccountable.  Grandgousier's 
simple  and  pious  theory  to  explain  the  goodliness 
of  Friar  John's  nose  would  hardly  pass  muster 
now.  The  "mystery  of  our  being"  has  become  a 
favorite  object  of  contemplation.  Egoism  has 


"The  New  Timon"  141 

been  erected  into  a  system  of  theology.  Self  has 
been  deified  like  the  Egyptian  onion, — 

"Nascuntur  in  hortis 
Numina." 

Poets  used  to  look  before  and  after.  Now,  their 
eyes  are  turned  wholly  inward,  and  ordinarily 
with  as  useful  result  as  was  attained  by  the  Brah 
min  who  spent  five  years  in  the  beatific  inspection 
of  his  own  navel.  Instead  of  poems,  we  have  lec 
tures  on  the  morbid  anatomy  of  self.  Nature  her 
self  must  subscribe  their  platform  of  doctrine, 
and  that  not  "for  substance,  scope,  and  aim,"  but 
without  qualification.  If  they  turn  their  eyes 
outward  for  a  moment,  they  behold  in  the  land 
scape  only  a  smaller  image  of  themselves.  The 
mountain  becomes  a  granite  Mr.  Smith,  and  the 
ocean  (leaving  out  the  salt)  a  watery  Mr.  Brown, 
— in  other  words  a  Mr.  Brown  with  the  milky 
particles  of  his  composition  deducted.  A  new 
systema  mundi  is  constructed,  with  the  individual 
idiosyncrasy  of  the  poet  for  its  base.  And,  to 
prolong  the  delight  of  swallowing  all  this  sublime 
mystification,  enraptured  simplicity  prays  fer 
vently,  with  the  old  epicure,  for  the  neck  of  a  crane. 
Fortunately,  that  of  a  goose  will  suffice. 

Nor  has  our  mother  tongue  been  safe  from  the 
experimental  incursions  of  these  philosophers. 
They  have  plunged  so  deeply  into  the  well  of 
English  undefiled  as  to  bring  up  the  mud  from 
the  bottom.  This  they  call  "Saxon,"  and  infuse 
portions  of  it  into  their  productions,  deepening 


142  The  Round  Table 

the  turbid  obscurity.  Strange  virtues  have  been 
discovered  in  compound  words,  and  the  greater 
the  incongruity  of  the  mixture,  the  more  potent 
the  conjuration.  Phrases,  simple  or  unmeaning 
enough  in  themselves,  acquire  force  and  become 
mystical  by  repetition,  like  the  three  lods  of 
the  Cabbalists,  or  the  K6r£  "O^tf  of  the  Eleu- 
sinian  mysteries.  Straightforwardness  has  be 
come  a  prose  virtue.  The  poet  wanders  about 
his  subject,  looks  for  it  where  he  knows  it  is  not, 
and  avoids  looking  where  he  knows  it  is,  like  a 
child  playing  at  hide-and-seek,  who,  to  lengthen 
the  pleasure  of  the  hunt,  peeps  cautiously  into 
keyholes  and  every  other  impossible  place,  leaving 
to  the  last  the  table,  under  which  lurks,  with 
ostrich-like  obviousness,  the  object  of  his  search. 
It  had  been  fortunate  for  Columbus,  could  he  have 
recruited  his  crews  with  such  minstrels,  whose 
only  mutiny  would  have  been  at  the  finding  of  the 
expected  continent.  We  have  seen  the  transla 
tion  of  a  Hindoo  deed  which  affords  an  exact 
parallel  to  such  poetry.  It  begins  with  a  general 
history  of  India,  diverges  into  a  system  of  theol 
ogy,  exhausts  all  the  grantor's  knowledge  of 
natural  history  and  astronomy,  relates  a  few  fables 
on  different  subjects,  throws  in  a  confused  mass 
of  compound  words  (one  of  them  containing  one 
hundred  and  fifty-two  syllables),  and  finally  re 
veals  the  object  of  this  ponderous  legal  machine 
in  a  postscript  of  six  lines  conveying  an  acre  or 
two  of  land. 

The  New  Timon,  if  not  the  exact  reverse  of  all 


"The  New  Timon"  143 

this,  is  at  least  a  resolute  attempt  in  the  opposite 
direction.  We  do  not  believe  it  possible  to  revive 
the  style  of  Pope.  It  was  a  true  mirror  of  its 
own  age,  but  it  would  imperfectly  reflect  ours. 
Its  very  truth  then  would  make  it  false  now. 
The  petere  fontes  points  to  other  springs  than 
these.  Much  less  do  we  believe  in  confining  liter 
ature  to  the  strait  channel  of  any  one  period. 
That  is  surely  a  very  jejune  kind  of  conservatism, 
which,  with  the  Athenian  Ephorus,  would  cut 
every  new  string  added  to  the  lyre.  The  critics 
have  too  often  assumed  the  office  of  Ephorus  in 
our  commonwealth  of  letters,  and  have  unfortu 
nately  become  impressed  with  the  notion,  that  this 
chordisection  is  the  chief  part  of  their  official  duty. 
As  Selden  said  that  equity  was  measured  by  the 
length  of  my  Lord  Chancellor's  foot  for  the  time 
being,  so  has  judgment  in  these  cases  been  too 
often  meted,  if  not  by  the  length,  at  least  by  the 
susceptibility,  of  my  Lord  Ephorus's  ear.  If 
every  Phrynio  had  been  thus  dealt  with,  the  lyre 
would  never  have  lost  that  pristine  simplicity  and 
compactness,  and  that  facility  at  making  itself 
understood,  which  characterized  it  when  it  was  a 
plain  tortoise-shell,  ere  idle  Hermes  had  embar 
rassed  and  perplexed  it  with  a  single  string. 

The  author  is  a  professed  disciple  of  Pope,  but 
he  is  wanting  in  the  vivid  common-sense,  the  crys 
tal  terseness,  and  the  epigrammatic  point  of  his 
original.  Moreover,  he  is  something  of  a  "snob." 
His  foundling  Lucy  must  turn  out  to  be  an  earl's 
daughter;  his  Hindoo  Timon  must  be  a  nabob. 


144  The  Round  Table 

It  is  clear  that  he  reverences  those  very  artificial 
distinctions  which  he  professes  to  scorn.  So  much 
contempt  could  not  be  lavished  on  what  was  in 
significant.  Himself  the  child  of  a  highly  arti 
ficial  state  of  society,  there  seems  to  be  something 
unfilial  and  against  nature  in  his  assaults  upon  it. 
His  New  Timon  is  made  a  Timon  by  the  very 
things  which  he  affects  to  despise.  Pope  was 
quite  superior  to  so  subaltern  a  feeling. 

The  plot  of  the  story  is  not  much  to  our  taste. 
Morvale,  the  hero,  is  the  son  of  a  half-Hindoo 
father  and  an  English  mother.  The  mother,  left 
a  widow, 

"Loathed  the  dark  pledge  the  abhorred  nuptials  bore; 
Yet  young,  her  face  more  genial  wedlock  won,  / 

And  one  bright  daughter  made  more  loathed  the  son. 
Widowed  anew,   for  London's  native  air 
And  two  tall  footmen  sighed  the  jointured  fair; 
Wealth  hers,  why  longer  from  its  use  exiled? 
She  fled  the  land  and  the  abandoned  child." 

In  the  meanwhile,  a  rich  friend  of  Morvale's 
father  opportunely  dies,  leaving  his  immense 
wealth  to  the  son.  This  self-devotion  on  the  part 
of  the  very  rich  is  happily  universal  in  the  Utopia 
of  the  novel  and  the  melodrama.  We  are  thus 
introduced  to  Mr.  Morvale. 

"They  sought  and  found  the  unsuspecting  heir 
Couched  in  the  shade  that  neared  the  tiger's  lair, 
His  gun  beside,  the  jungle  round  him, — wild, 
Lawless,  and  fierce  as  Hagar's  wandering  child: — 
To  this  fresh  nature  the  sleek  life  deceased 
Left  the  bright  plunder  of  the  ravaged  East. 


"The  New  Timon"  145 

Much  wealth  brings  want, — that  hunger  of  the  heart 
Which  comes  when  Nature  man  deserts  for  Art: 
His  northern  blood,  his  English  name,  create 
Strife  in  the  soul  till  then  resigned  to  fate; 
The  social  world,  with  blander  falsehood  graced, 
Smiles  on  his  hopes  and  lures  him  from  the  waste. 
Alas !  the  taint  that  sunburnt  brow  bespeaks 
Divides  the  Half-Caste  from  the  world  he  seeks; 
In  him  proud  Europe  sees  the  P aria's  birth, 
And  haughty  Juno  spurns  his  barren  hearth. 
Half  heathen  and  half  savage, — all  estranged 
Amidst  his  kind,  the  Ishmael  roved  unchanged." 

We  do  not  profess  to  be  in  Juno's  confidence, 
but,  unless  she  is  greatly  belied,  she  is  not  in  the 
habit  of  examining  closely  the  complexion  of  a 
millionaire.  Wealth  produces  a  marvelous  change 
in  Morvale,  at  least.  He  now  travels,  con 
verses  much  with  books  and  men,  drinks  life  at 
once  to  the  dregs  (the  favorite  beverage  of  heroes) , 
and  becomes  one  of  those  profoundly  learned  men 
of  the  world,  more  familiar  to  the  patrons  of  cir 
culating  libraries  than  to  any  other  class  in  society. 
These  singular  beings  are  the  antithesis  of  or 
dinary  natures.  They  are  incarnate  contradic 
tions.  Fire  and  gunpowder  in  them  meet  on 
amicable  terms.  A  liberal  course  of  dissipation 
fulfils  more  than  the  functions  of  a  university. 
In  the  society  of  opera-girls,  they  learn  to  be 
fastidious  in  women;  in  that  of  roues,,  they  ex 
haust  the  arts  and  sciences.  We  do  not  say 
that  Morvale  is  precisely  one  of  these,  but  we 
have  hints,  every  here  and  there,  of  something 
like  it.  We  would  only  warn  him  from  ground 


146  The  Bound  Table 

sacred  to  Madame  Tussaud  and  the  melodrama. 
Morvale,  having  run  round  the  elevated  circle 
of  the  passions,  subsides  to  a  less  heroic,  but  much 
more  respectable,  stratum  of  existence.  His  feel 
ings  as  a  son  and  brother  revive.  He  accordingly, 
we  are  told,  "searched  his  mother,"  a  perilous  in 
fringement  of  orthoepy,  or  of  the  rights  of  the 
subject,  if  done  without  a  justice's  warrant.  He 
does  not  find  her,  however,  she  being  probably  one 
of  those  highly  artificial  characters  who  never 
carry  themselves  about  with  them.  She  avoids 
him 

"Till  Death  approached,  and  Conscience,  that  sad  star, 
That  heralds  Night,  and  plays  but  on  the  bar 
Of  the  Eternal  Gate,— laid  bare  the  crime." 

She  leaves  her  daughter  Calantha  to  his  fraternal 
care.  The  brother  and  sister  go  to  housekeeping 
together  in  the  magnificent  isolation  of  London. 
But  though  there  is  enough  affection,  there  is 
little  confidence,  between  them.  A  secret  melan 
choly,  the  origin  of  which  Morvale  tries  in  vain  to 
discover,  preys  upon  the  spirits  of  Calantha, — 
the  old  "worm  i'  the  bud."  Morvale,  in  one  of 
his  walks,  encounters  an  orphan,  Lucy,  whom  he 
brings  home  with  him,  and  makes  an  inmate  of 
his  house,  where,  in  good  time,  a  passion  springs 
up  between  them. 

One  of  Morvale's  friends — and  it  is  a  little 
singular,  that  notwithstanding  the  barrier  of  his 
Hindoo  blood,  he  moves  in  the  most  fashionable 
society — is  Lord  Arden,  a  blase  like  himself,  who 


"The  New  Timon"  147 

one  day,  while  they  are  riding  together,  relates 
his  own  history.  Whatever  fault  we  may  find 
with  our  author's  plot,  we  cannot  but  approve  his 
method  of  unfolding  it.  He  tells  his  stories 
admirably,  and  interests  us  in  spite  of  ourselves. 
But  we  must  be  careful  that  this  does  not  interfere 
with  our  judgment  of  him  as  a  poet.  An  author 
may  be  a  very  good  story-teller,  and  a  very  bad 
poet.  The  character  of  Arden  is  well  conceived. 
Indeed,  it  is  by  far  the  best  in  the  book.  The 
story  had  been  truer  to  nature,  if  he,  who  had  been 
through  life  brought  into  contact  with  the  hollow- 
nesses  of  society,  had  become  the  Timon  instead 
of  Morvale.  A  man  of  the  world,  and  selfish  (if 
we  may  say  so)  rather  on  aesthetic  grounds  than 
by  nature,  he  falls  in  love,  while  yet  quite  young, 
with  Mary,  the  daughter  of  a  poor  country  curate. 
Arden  is  one  of  the  presumptive  heirs  to  an  earl 
dom,  the  present  earl  being  his  uncle,  and  a  cun 
ning  Scot  has  barnacled  himself  to  the  prosperous 
ship  of  his  fortunes.  Through  him,  Arden  con 
trives  an  elopement  and  clandestine  marriage. 
The  Scot,  however,  knowing  that  Arden's  uncle, 
the  earl,  looked  upon  a  wife  as  merely  one  round 
in  the  ladder  of  preferment,  and  would  infallibly 
withdraw  his  patronage,  if  he  discovered  such  a 
mark  of  unthrift  in  his  nephew  as  disinterested 
love,  has  the  ceremony  performed  by  a  mock 
priest.  Mary's  father,  finding  the  marriage  to  be 
a  sham,  dies  broken-hearted,  and  Mary  herself, 
compelled  to  believe  herself  betrayed,  leaves  her 
home  and  wanders  no  one  knows  whither.  Arden, 


148  The  Round  Table 

meanwhile,  ignorant  of  all  this,  has  gone  on  a  for 
eign  embassy.  On  his  return,  he  becomes  aware 
of  the  deceit  practised  upon  him  in  regard  to  the 
marriage,  but  seeks  Mary  in  vain.  After  the 
lapse  of  some  years,  he  meets  a  lady  in  Italy, 
to  whom  he  becomes  betrothed.  The  day  for 
the  wedding  is  already  fixed,  when  he  receives 
letters  from  England,  giving  a  hope  that  Mary's 
hiding-place  may  be  found.  Leaving  his  be 
trothed  with  a  hasty  and  unintelligible  explana 
tion,  he  hastens  home,  where  his  search  is  again 
unsuccessful.  So  far  Arden  is  his  own  biogra 
pher. 

After  a  time,  Morvale,  by  means  of  a  miniature 
worn  by  Lucy,  discovers  that  she  is  the  daughter 
of  Arden  and  Mary.  He  is  about  to  send  for 
Arden  to  inform  him  of  this  fact,  when  he  makes 
the  additional  discovery,  that  Calantha  is  the 
nameless  lady  to  whom  his  friend  had  been  be 
trothed  in  Italy,  and  that  his  desertion  of  her  was 
the  occasion  of  that  profound  melancholy  which 
was  gradually  killing  her.  He  sends  for  Arden, 
and  receives  him  by  the  death-bed  of  Calantha. 
His  Indian  nature  thirsts  for  revenge,  and,  after 
making  known  his  last  discovery  to  the  man  whom 
he  now  considers  his  deadliest  foe,  draws  a  dag 
ger,  but  is  arrested  in  the  act  of  striking  by  the 
entrance  of  Lucy,  who  throws  herself  between 
them.  The  relationship  between  Lucy  and  Arden 
is  revealed,  and  she  goes  home  with  her  father. 
Morvale,  still  struggling  with  his  savage  thirst  for 
vengeance,  wanders  over  the  country  on  foot,  and 


"The  New  Timon"  149 

at  last  meets  with  an  old  man  who  converts  him 
to  Christianity.  A  chance  occurring,  he  saves 
Arden  from  drowning,  but  leaves  him  before  he 
has  recovered  his  consciousness,  though  not  before 
he  has  been  seen  and  recognized  by  Lucy.  Arden 
at  length  dies.  By  an  informality  in  his  will, 
Lucy  is  disinherited,  and  at  this  juncture  Morvale 
returns  in  season  to  have  the  story  end  canonically 
with  a  wedding. 

Our  brief  sketch  does  no  kind  of  justice,  of 
course,  to  the  narrative  skill  of  the  author,  which 
is,  we  are  inclined  to  think,  his  strong  point.  But 
the  comparative  anatomist  will  see  at  a  glance, 
that  the  skeleton  is  in  many  parts  inconsistent 
with  itself.  Even  granting  (a  large  concession), 
that  the  hereditary  savage  in  Morvale  should  have 
withstood  all  the  refining  influences  of  a  high  arti 
ficial  culture,  and  the  Mephistophelic  polish 
acquired  by  attrition  with  the  world,  there  is  still 
a  geographical  blunder  in  the  character.  It  is 
far  less  in  accordance  with  what  we  know  of  the 
mild  nature  of  the  Hindoo,  than  with  the  less 
tractable  idiosyncrasy  of  our  American  Indian, 
which  takes  the  color  of  the  white  man's  civiliza 
tion  only  as  a  paint  through  which  the  Maker's 
original  red  shows  itself  at  the  first  opportunity. 
But  after  making  this  allowance,  we  feel  that  the 
author  has  not  used  the  character  to  the  best  ad 
vantage.  This  fresh,  unfettered  nature  might 
have  been  brought  into  fine  contrast  with  Arden, 
the  artificial  product  of  the  club  and  the  saloon. 
Indeed,  this  seemfs  to  have  been  the  author's  orig- 


150  The  Round  Table 

inal  design,  but  in  point  of  fact  there  is  little  sub 
stantial  difference  between  the  two  characters  as 
they  are  exhibited  to  us  in  the  narrative,  and  they 
might  change  places  without  any  great  shock  to 
the  reader's  sense  of  fitness.2  Our  author  makes 
up  his  characters.  His  mind  is  not  of  that  creative 
quality  which  holds  the  elements  of  different 
characters,  as  it  were,  in  solution,  allowing  each 
to  absorb  only  that  which  is  congenial  to  itself,  by 
a  kind  of  elective  affinity.  The  only  savage  pro 
pensity  of  Morvale's  nature  which  is  brought  to 
bear  upon  the  story  is  the  sentiment  of  revenge, 
and  for  this  the  motive  is  not  sufficient.  Why 
should  Morvale  wish,  or  how  could  he  expect,  that 
Arden  should  have  committed  what  would  have 
been  at  least  moral  bigamy  by  marrying  Calantha? 
If  not,  what  injury  was  there  to  avenge?  The 
story,  in  fact,  ends  with  Arden's  discovery  of  his 
daughter;  the  whole  of  Morvale's  conduct  after 
this  event  seems  to  be  an  unnatural  excrescence. 
The  author  may  plead  that  he  intended  to  convey 
a  moral;  but  the  moral  of  a  story  should  always 
be  infused  into  it,  or  rather  should  exhale  out  of 
every  part  of  it,  like  the  odor  of  a  flower.  It  is 
but  an  incumbrance,  when  wafered  on.  Besides, 
the  means  by  which  he  manages  the  conversion 
of  his  hero  are  ludicrously  insufficient  to  the  end. 
If  Horace's  rule  be  true,  that  a  god  must  not  be 

2  In  his  tragedy  of  "Luria,"  Mr.  Browning  has  finally  worked 
out  an  idea  similar  in  kind,  though  with  tragic,  and  not  satirical, 
contrast.  We  are  glad  to  recognize  in  the  last  work  of  this  very 
promising  dramatist  a  more  assured  touch,  and  a  chastened,  though 
by  no  means  diminished,  vigor  and  originality. 


"The  New  Timon"  151 

brought  in  unless  the  knot  refuses  to  be  unloosed 
by  simpler  means,  then  it  follows,  a  fortiori,  that, 
when  brought,  the  god  should  be  competent  to  the 
task  in  hand.  It  is  absurd  that  Morvale,  after 
holding  out  so  long  against  more  natural  induce 
ments,  should  be  converted  at  last  by  a  very  prosy 
sermon  from  an  old  man  whom  he  meets  under  a 
hedge,  and  whom]  he  would  have  been  much  more 
likely  to  consider  a  bore  than  an  apostle.  The 
author  should  have  remembered  his  master  Pope's 
criticism  upon  Milton.  It  would  have  been  much 
more  to  the  purpose,  had  Morvale  been  regener 
ated  by  his  love  for  Lucy.  As  the  denouement 
is  managed,  we  feel  very  much  as  when  we  first 
discovered  that  the  red  ntan  of  our  boyish  imag 
ination,  the  one  hero  of  Cooper  under  a  dozen 
aliases, 

"The  stoic  of  the  woods,  the  man  without  a  fear/* 

was  powerless  to  resist  the  persuasion  of  a  string 
of  glass  beads. 

We  will  now  proceed  to  extract  some  of  the 
passages  which  have  struck  us  most  favorably  in 
reading  the  book,  and  which  give  a  fair  idea  of 
the  author's  manner  and  spirit.  In  the  first  part 
of  the  poem  there  are  a  few  sketches  of  well- 
known  public  characters,  which,  as  they  are  com 
plete  in  themselves,  and  have  no  connection  with 
the  story,  we  will  quote  first.  They  do  not 
assume  to  be  complete  full-lengths,  but  must  be 
understood  as  hit  off  with  a  pencil  on  the  crown 
of  a  hat.  We  omit  that  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  who 


152  The  Round  Table 

seems  to  have  puzzled  our  author,  and  come  to 
the  Duke  of  Wellington. 

"Next,  with  loose  rein  and  careless  canter  view 
Our  man  of  men,  the  Prince  of  Waterloo; 
O'er  the  firm  brow  the  hat  as  firmly  prest, 
The  firm  shape  rigid  in  the  button'd  vest; 
Within — the  iron  which  the  fire  has  proved, 
And  the  close  Sparta  of  a  mind  unmoved! 
Not  his  the  wealth  to  some  large  natures  lent, 
Divinely  lavish,  even  where  misspent, 
That  liberal  sunshine  of  exuberant  soul, 
Thought,  sense,  affection,  warming  up  the  whole; 
The  heat  and  affluence  of  a  genial  power, 
Rank  in  the  weed  as  vivid  in  the  flower; 
Hush'd  at  command  his  veriest  passions  halt, 
DrilTd  is  each  virtue,  disciplined  each  fault; 
Warm  if  his  blood — he  reasons  while  he  glows, 
Admits  the  pleasure — ne'er  the  folly  knows; 
If  for  our  Mars  his  snare  had  Vulcan  set, 
He  had  won  the  Venus,  but  escaped  the  net; 
His  eye  ne'er  wrong  if  circumscribed  the  sight, 
Widen  the  prospect  and  it  ne'er  is  right, 
Seen  through  the  telescope  of  habit  still, 
States  seem  a  camp,  and  all  the  world — a  drill!" 

O'Connell  next  passes  across  our  magic-lantern. 

"But  who,  scarce  less  by  every  gazer  eyed, 
Walks  yonder,  swinging  with  a  stalwart  stride? 
With  that  vast  bulk  of  chest  and  limb  assign'd 
So  oft  to  men  who  subjugate  their  kind; 
So  sturdy   Cromwell   push'd   broad-shoulder'd   on; 
So  burly  Luther  breasted  Babylon; 
So  brawny   Cleon   bawl'd   his   Agora   down; 
And  large-limb'd  Mahmoud  clutch'd  a  Prophet's  crown! 


"The  New  Timon"  153 

"Ay,  mark  him  well!  the  schemer's  subtle  eye, 
The  stage-mime's  plastic  lip  your  search  defy — 
He,  like  Lysander,  never  deems  it  sin 
To  eke  the  lion's  with  the  fox's  skin; 
Vain  every  mesh  this  Proteus  to  enthrall, 
He  breaks  no  statute,  and  he  creeps  through  all; 
First  to  the  mass  that  valiant  truth  to  tell, 
'Rebellion's  art  is  never  to  rebel, — 
Elude  all  danger,  but  defy  all  laws,' — 
He  stands  himself  the  Safe  Sublime  he  draws ! 
In  him  behold  all  contrasts  which  belong 
To  minds  abased,  but  passions  rous'd,  by  wrong; 
The  blood  all  fervor,  and  the  brain  all  guile, — 
The  patriot's  bluntness,  and  the  bondsman's  wile." 

The  drawing  of  the  present  premier  is  still  more 
happily  touched. 

"Next  cool,  and  all  unconscious  of  reproach, 
Comes  the  calm  'Johnny  who  upset  the  coach.' 
How  formed  to  lead,  if  not  too  proud  to  please, — 
His  frame  would  fire  you,  but  his  manners  freeze. 
Like  or  dislike,  he  does  not  care  a  jot; 
He  wants  your  vote,  but  your  affections  not; 
Yet  human  hearts  need  sun,  as  well  as  oats, — 
So  cold  a  climate  plays  the  deuce  with  votes. — 
And  while  its  doctrines  ripen  day  by  day, 
His  frost-nipp'd  party  pines  itself  away; — 
From  the  starved  wretch  its  own  loved  child  we  steal — 
And  'Free  Trade'  chirrups  on  the  lap  of  Peel! — 
But  see  our  statesman  when  the  steam  is  on, 
And  languid  Johnny  glows  to  glorious  John! 
When  Hampden's  thought,  by  Falkland's  muses  drest, 
Lights  the  pale  cheek,  and  swells  the  generous  breast; 
When  the  pent  heat  expands  the  quickening  soul, — 
And  foremost  in  the  race  the  wheels  of  genius  roll!" 


154  The  Round  Table 

It  is  impossible  to  do  justice  to  the  narrative 
parts  of  the  poem  by  means  of  detached  passages. 
We  shall  glean  a  descriptive  passage  here  and 
there,  as  a  fairer  course  toward  the  author,  these 
being  at  least  complete  in  themselves.  The  fol 
lowing  verses,  conveying  the  feelings  suggested 
by  night  in  London,  are  striking. 

"The  Hours  steal  on — and  o'er  the  unquiet  might 
Of  the  great  Babel — reigns,  dishallowed,  Night! 
Not,  as  o'er  Nature's  world,  She  comes,  to  keep 
Beneath  the  stars  her  solemn  tryst  with  Sleep, 
When  move  the  twin-born  Genii  side  by  side, 
And  steal  from  earth  its  demons  where  they  glide; 
Lull'd  the  spent  Toil — seal'd  Sorrow's  heavy  eyes, 
And  dreams  restore  the  dews  of  Paradise; 
But  Night,  discrown'd  and  sever'd  from  her  twin, 
No  pause  for  Travail,  no  repose  for  Sin, 
Vex'd  by  one  chafed  rebellion  to  her  sway, 
Flits  o'er  the  lamp-lit  streets — a  phantom-day!" 

Here  are  a  pair  of  out-of-doors  scenes.  The 
first  is  contained  in  a  very  few  lines,  but  it  is 
natural  and  touching.  Arden  has  returned  to 
England,  and  is  seeking  Mary  at  her  old  home. 

"Behold  her  home  once  more! 

Her  home !  a  desert ! — still,  though  rank  and  wild, 
On  the  rank  grass  the  headless  floweret  smiled; 
Still  by  the  porch  you  heard  the  ungrateful  bee, 
Still  brawled  the  brooklet's  unremembering  glee." 

The  other  is  an  autumnal  landscape.  But  it 
must  be  observed  that  the  author  never  paints 
directly  from  nature,  but  from  the  reflection  of 
her  in  his  own  mind. 


"The  New  Timon"  155 

"Now  Autumn  closes  on  the  fading  year, 
The  chill  wind  moaneth  through  the  woodlands  sere; 
At  morn  the  mists  lie  mournful  on  the  hill, — 
The  hum  of  summer's  populace  is  still! 
Hush'd  the  rife  herbage,  mute  the  choral  tree, 
The  blithe  cicala  and  the  murmuring  bee; 
The  plashing  reed,  the  furrow  on  the  glass 
Of  the  calm  wave,  as  by  the  bank  you  pass 
Scaring  the  glistening  trout, — delight  no  more; 
The  god  of  fields  is  dead — Pan's  lusty  reign  is  o'er! 
Solemn  and  earnest — yet  to  holier  eyes 
Not  void  of  glory,  arch  the  sober'd  skies 
Above  the  serious  earth! — e'en  as  the  age 
When  fades  the  sunlight  from  the  poet's  page, 
When  all  Creation  is  no  longer  rife, 
As  Jove's  lost  creed,  with  deity  and  life — 
And  where  Apollo  hymn'd,  where  Venus  smil'd; 
Where  laugh'd  from  every  rose  the  Paphian  child; 
Where  in  each  wave  the  wanton  nymph  was  seen; 
Where  in  each  moonbeam  shone  Endymion's  queen; 
Where  in  each  laurel,  from  the  eternal  bough 
Daphne  wreathed  chaplets  for  a  dreamy  brow; 
To  the  wreck'd  thrones  of  the  departed  creeds 
A  solemn  Faith,  a  lonely  God  succeeds; 
And  o'er  the  earthen  altars  of  our  youth, 
Reigns,  'mid  a  silence  disenchanted, — Truth!" 

The  following  night-scene  is  perhaps  the  best 
of  its  kind  in  the  whole  book.  The  images  are  all 
in  keeping  (a  rare  thing  with  our  author),  and 
the  expression,  especially  in  the  verse  we  have 
italicized,  condensed  and  energetic. 

"  'Tis  night, — a  night  by  fits,  now  foul,  now  fair, 
As  speed  the  cloud-wracks  through  the  gusty  air: 
At  times  the  wild  blast  dies — and  fair  and  far, 
Through  chasms  of  cloud,  looks  down  the  solemn  star — 


156  The  Round  Table 

Or  the  majestic  moon; — as  watchfires  mark 
Some  sleeping  War  dim-tented  in  the  dark; 
Or  as,  through  antique  Chaos  and  the  storm 
Of  Matter,  whirl'd  and  writhing  into  form 
Pale  angels  peer'd! 

"Anon,  from  brief  repose 

The  winds  leap  forth,  the  cloven  deeps  reclose; 
Mass  upon  mass  the  hurtling  vapors  driven, 
And  one  huge  blackness  walls  the  earth  from  heaven!" 

As  we  have  said  above,  narrative  seems  the 
author's  true  sphere.  His  reflections  are  often 
commonplace,  sometimes  puerile,  and  display 
more  knowledge  of  society  than  of  man.  Often 
a  thought  slender  in  itself  is  invested  with  a  burly 
air  by  means  of  initial  capitals.  But  when  he  has 
a  story  to  tell,  he  is  in  his  native  element.  He 
never  flags,  his  versification  becomes  bolder  and 
more  sustained,  the  transitions  are  rapid  and 
fluent,  and  incident  follows  incident  without  con 
fusion  and  with  a  culminating  interest. 

The  author  of  the  New  Timon  might  have 
studied  Pope  to  more  purpose  than  he  has  done. 
He  is  often  exceedingly  obscure.  Brevis  esse 
labor  at  j  obscurus  fit.  There  are  passages  in  the 
poem  which  have  defied  our  utmost  capacity  of 
penetration.  Nor  is  his  use  of  language  always 
correct.  His  metaphors  are  frequently  confused, 
as,  for  instance: — 

"From  the  way-side  yon  drooping  flower  I  bore; 
Warm'd  at  my  heart,  its  root  grew  to  the  core." 

A  new  method  of  reviving  wilted  plants.     As  a 
metrist  he  has  departed  widely  from  his  professed 


"The  New  Timon"  157 

original.  In  this  respect  he  has  done  wisely,  for 
Pope's  measure  is  quite  too  uniform  for  the  abrupt 
changes  and  varying  inflections  of  a  narrative. 
But  too  often  he  weakens  a  verse  by  a  repetition 
of  trivial  monosyllables;  as, 

"Wept  tears  that  seemed  to  sweet  founts  to  belong." 
"Thou  com'st  to  slaughter,  to  depart  in  joy." 

Or  by  a  word  not  strongly  or  decidedly  enough 
accented;  as, 

"Not  even  yet  the  alien  blood  confessed." 
"Lists  the  soft  lapse  of  the  glad  waterfall." 

We  object,  also,  to  his  mode  of  using  the  Alex 
andrine  as  too  abrupt.  The  metre  should  flow 
into  it  with  a  more  gradual  and  easy  swell.  One 
of  our  own  countrymen,  Dr.  Holmes,  has  a  much 
surer  mastery  over  this  trying  measure.  We 
think  the  subject  of  metre  one  to  be  studied  deeply 
by  all  who  undertake  to  write  in  verse.  We  can 
not  quite  agree  with  old  Samuel  Daniel,  who,  in 
his  noble  "Defense  of  Rime,"  asserts  that  "what 
soever  form  of  words  doth  move,  delight,  and  sway 
the  affections  of  men,  in  what  Scythian  sort 
soever  it  be  disposed  or  uttered,  that  is  true  num 
ber,  measure,  eloquence,  and  the  perfection  of 
speech."  No  doubt,  the  effect  produced  is  the 
chief  point;  but  in  truth,  the  best  utterances  of 
the  best  minds  have  never  been  Scythian,  coming 
to  us  rather  "with  their  garlands  and  singing-robes 
about  them." 

In    conclusion,    we    should    say    that    vivacity, 


158  The  Round  Table 

rather  than  strength,  was  the  characteristic  of  our 
author;  that  rapidity  of  action,  rather  than  depth 
or  originality,  was  the  leading  trait  of  his  mind. 
In  his  contempt  of  Laura-Matildaisrn,  he  some 
times  carries  his  notions  of  manliness  to  an  ex 
treme  which  would  be  more  offensive,  were  it  not 
altogether  absurd.  He  says,  for  example,  that 

"Even  in  a  love-song  man  should  write  for  men!" 

Imagine  the  author  of  the  New  Timon  serenading 
Lord  Stanley,  who  seems  to  be  an  object  of  his 
admiration,  with  "Sleep,  gentleman,  sleep!"  It 
follows,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  his  female 
characters  (the  simplest  test  of  a  creative  poetic 
genius)  are  mere  shadows. 

If  we  might  hazard  a  guess,  we  should  name 
Bulwer  as  the  probable  author  of  this  poem.  It 
seems  hardly  possible  that  it  should  be  the  first 
production  of  a  young  writer.  The  skilfulness 
with  which  the  plot  is  constructed,  perfection  in 
which  is  perhaps  the  slowest  attainment  of  writers 
of  fiction,  seem^  to  argue  against  such  a  supposi 
tion.  Moreover,  the  characters  and  general  senti 
ment  are  very  much  in  Bulwer's  manner.  The 
fondness  for  personifying  qualities  or  passions, 
and  of  giving  a  factitious  importance  to  ordinary 
conceptions  by  means  of  initial  capitals,  is  also 
one  of  his  strongest  peculiarities.  The  moral  of 
the  story,  too,  is  within  his  range.  Had  we  time, 
we  might  confirm  our  theory  by  a  tolerably  strong 
array  of  minor  corroborations.  But  we  must  per 
force  content  ourselves  with  merely  throwing  out 


"The  New  Timon"  159 

the  suggestion.  It  can  hardly  be  supposed  that 
the  authorship  of  a  poem  which  ran  at  once 
through  several  editions  can  long  remain  a  secret. 
The  fate  of  Junius  is  a  warning  to  all  authors  not 
to  preserve  the  anonymous  too  strictly. 


BROWNING'S  PLAYS  AND  POEMS 


BROWNING'S  PLAYS  AND  POEMS  1 

£  £  "W"  ""IT  ERE  we  found  an  old  man  in  a 
•  B  cavern,  so  extremely  aged  as  it 
was  wonderful,  which  could 
-*-  -*-  neither  see  nor  go  because  he  was 
so  lame  and  crooked.  The  Father,  Friar  Rai- 
mund,  said  it  were  good  (seeing  he  was  so  aged) 
to  make  him  a  Christian;  so  we  christened  him." 
The  recollection  of  this  pious  action  doubtless 
smoothed  the  pillow  of  the  worthy  Captain  Fran 
cesco  de  Ulloa  under  his  dying  head;  and  we  men 
tion  it  here,  not  because  of  the  credit  it  confers  on 
the  memory  of  that  enterprising  and  Catholic 
voyager,  but  because  it  reminds  us  of  the  manner 
in  which  the  world  treats  its  poets.  Each  genera 
tion  makes  a  kind  of  death-bed  reparation  toward 
them,  and  remembers  them,  so  to  speak,  in  its 
will.  It  wreathes  its  superfluous  laurel  commonly 
round  the  trembling  temples  of  age,  or  lays  it 
ceremoniously  on  the  coffin  of  him  who  has  passed 
quite  beyond  the  sphere  of  its  verdict.  It  deifies 
those  whom  it  can  find  no  better  use  for,  as  a 
parcel  of  savages  agree  that  some  fragment  of 
wreck,  too  crooked  to  be  wrought  into  war-clubs, 
will  make  a  nice  ugly  god  to  worship. 

i  Paracelsus,    a    Poem.    By    ROBERT    BROWNING.    London: 
Effingham   Wilson.     1835. 

Bordello,   a   Poem.    By    ROBERT    BROWNING.    London:   Ed 
ward  Moxon.     1840. 

Bells    and    Pomegranates.    By    ROBERT    BROWNING.    Lon 
don:  Edward  Moxon.    1841-46. 

163 


164  The  Round  Table 

Formerly,  a  man  who  wished  to  withdraw  him 
self  from  the  notice  of  the  world  retired  into  a 
convent.  The  simpler  modern  method  is,  to  pub 
lish  a  volume  of  poems.  The  surest  way  of  making 
one's  self  thoroughly  forgotten  and  neglected  is 
to  strive  to  leave  the  world  better  than  we  find  it. 
Respectable  ghosts  find  it  necessary  to  cut  Shelley 
till  the  ban  of  atheism  be  taken  off,  though  his 
son  is  a  baronet, — a  circumstance,  one  would 
think,  which  ought  to  have  some  weight  in  the  land 
of  shadows.  Even  the  religious  Byron  is  forced 
to  be  a  little  shy  of  him.  Mr.  Gifford,  the  ci- 
devant  shoemaker,  still  sends  a  shudder  through 
the  better  classes  in  Elysium;,  by  whispering  that 
Keats  was  a  stable-boy  and  the  friend  of  Hunt. 
Milton,  to  be  sure,  was  seen  shaking  hands  with 
him  on  his  arrival;  but  everybody  knows  what  he 
was.  Burns  sings  rather  questionable  songs  in  a 
corner,  with  a  parcel  of  Scotchmen  who  smell  of 
brimstone.  Coleridge  preaches,  with  Lamb  for  a 
congregation. 

Ever  the  same  old  story.  The  poor  poet  is  put 
off  with  a  draft  upon  Posterity,  but  it  is  made 
payable  to  the  order  of  Death,  and  must  be  in 
dorsed  by  him  to  be  negotiable.  And,  after  all, 
who  is  this  respectable  fictitious  paymaster? 
Posterity  is,  to  the  full,  as  great  a  fool  as  we  are. 
His  ears  differ  not  from  ours  in  length  by  so  much 
as  a  hair's  breadth.  He,  as  well  as  we,  sifts  care 
fully  in  order  to  preserve  the  chaff  and  bran.  He 
is  as  much  given  to  paying  his  debts  in  shinplasters 
as  we.  But,  even  were  Posterity  an  altogether 


Browning's  Plays  and  Poems  165 

solvent  and  trustworthy  personage,  it  would  be  no 
less  a  piece  of  cowardice  and  dishonesty  in  us  to 
shift  our  proper  responsibilities  upon  his  shoul 
ders.  If  he  pay  any  debts  of  ours,  it  is  because  he 
defrauds  his  own  contemporary  creditors.  We 
have  no  right  thus  to  speculate  prospectively,  and 
to  indulge  ourselves  in  a  posthumous  insolvency. 
In  point  of  fact,  Posterity  is  no  better  than  a 
Mrs.  Harris.  Why,  we  ourselves  have  once  en 
joyed  this  antenatal  grandeur.  We  were  Pos 
terity  to  that  Sarah  Gamp,  the  last  generation. 
We  laugh  in  our  sleeves,  as  we  think  of  it.  That 
we  should  have  been  appealed  to  by  so  many 
patriots,  philosophers,  poets,  projectors,  and  what 
not,  as  a  convenient  embodiment  of  the  eternal 
justice,  and  yet  be  nothing  more  than  the  Smiths 
and  Browns  over  again,  with  all  our  little  cliques, 
and  prejudices,  and  stupid  admirations  of  our 
selves  ! 

We  do  not,  therefore,  feel  especially  flattered, 
when  it  is  said,  that  America  is  a  posterity  to  the 
living  English  author.  Let  us  rather  wish  to  de 
serve  the  name  of  a  contemporary  public  unbiased 
by  personal  and  local  considerations.  In  this  way, 
our  geographical  position  may  tend  to  produce 
among  us  a  class  of  competent  critics,  who,  by 
practice  in  looking  at  foreign  works  from  a  point 
of  pure  art,  may  in  time  be  able  to  deal  exact 
justice  to  native  productions. 

Unfortunately,  before  we  can  have  good  criti 
cism,  it  is  necessary  that  we  should  have  good 
critics;  and  this  consummation  seems  only  the  far- 


166  The  Round  Table 

ther  off  now  that  the  business  has  grown  into  a 
profession  and  means  of  subsistence.  Doubtless, 
the  critic  sets  out  with  an  ideal  before  him.  His 
forereaching  spirit  shapes  to  itself  designs  of  noble 
and  gigantic  proportions.  Very  early  in  life,  he 
even  conceives  of  reading  the  books  he  reviews. 
Soon,  however,  like  other  mortals,  he  comes  to 
consider  that  merely  to  get  along  is  a  current  sub 
stitute  for  success.  He  finds  that  in  this,  as  in 
other  professions,  the  adroitness  lies  in  making  the 
least  information  go  the  greatest  way.  The  sys 
tem  is,  perhaps,  to  be  blamed  rather  than  we  un 
fortunates  who  are  the  victims  of  it.  Poor  Zoilus 
must  have  his  chronic  illuminations.  He  must  be 
statistical,  brilliant,  profound,  withering,  scorch 
ing,  searching,  and  slashing,  once  a  quarter,  or 
once  a  month,  according  to  the  demands  of  that 
insatiable  demon  of  the  press  to  whom  he  has  sold 
himself.  The  public  have  paid  for  their  seats, 
and,  when  the  curtain  rises,  he  must  fulfil  the 
promise  of  the  bills.  He  must  dance,  if  it  be  to 
no  better  orchestra  than  Saint  Vitus's  fiddle. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  returning  the  money  at 
the  door.  If  Zoilus  encounter  a  book  which  hap 
pens  to  be  beyond  his  comprehension, — are  we 
going  too  far,  or  shall  we  make  a  clean  breast,  and 
acknowledge  that  this  is  no  unheard-of  contin 
gency? — and  find  it  impossible  to  say  what  is  in  it, 
he  must  get  over  the  difficulty  by  telling  all  his 
readers  what  is  out  of  it,  and  by  assuring  them, 
with  a  compassionate  regret,  that  they  will  not  find 
this  or  that  there.  Whether  they  ought  to  be 


Browning's  Plays  and  Poems  167 

there  or  not  is  entirely  out  of  the  question.  The 
intention  of  a  book  is  just  the  last  thing  to  be  con 
sidered.  It  were  a  kind  of  impiety  to  suspect  any 
marks  of  design  in  it. 

The  critic  is  debarred  by  his  position  from  that 
common  sanctuary  of  humanity,  the  confession  of 
ignorance.  Were  Hamlet  to  be  published  anony 
mously  to-morrow,  he  must  tell  the  public  their 
opinion  of  it.  He  may  fly  for  refuge  to  the 
Unities.  Or  he  may  study  the  ancient  oracles, 
and  ensconce  himself  in  a  windier  than  Delphic 
ambiguity.  Or  he  may  confess  to  having  only 
run  over  its  pages, — a  happy  phrase,  since  there 
is  scarce  any  truly  living  book  which  does  not  bear 
the  print  of  that  hoof  which  Pindar  would  have 
Olympicized  into  the  spurner  of  dying  lions. 
Moreover,  it  is  considered  necessary  that  every 
critical  journal  should  have  a  character, — namely, 
for  one-sidedness,  though  there  is  scarce  a  review 
that  has  existed  for  a  dozen  years  which  might  not 
lay  claim  to  as  many  sides  as  Goethe,  if  it  were 
allowed  to  reckon  the  number  of  times  it  had 
shifted  them.  All  reviews  may  be  distinguished 
as  Conservative  or  Liberal,  and  may  be  classed 
together  as  Illiberal.  Ornithologically  they  might 
be  described  as, — ORDO,  Acdpitres;  GENUS, 
Striae;  SUBGENUS,  Illiberal;  SPECIES,  Conserva 
tive  or  Liberal;  food,  chiefly  authors.  One  class 
is  under  contract  to  admire  every  author  en 
tirely  without  brains, — the  other,  to  perform  the 
same  ceremony  for  him  who  has  just  enough  to 
allow  of  a  crack  in  them.  They  perform  alter- 


168  The  Round  Table 

* 
nately    the    functions    of    Lucina    and    Charon. 

Sometimes  it  oddly  enough  chances  that  they 
undertake  their  duties  simultaneously,  and  one  is 
ushering  an  author  into  the  world  with  prophecies 
of  long  life  and  prosperity,  while  the  other  is  as 
gravely  ferrying  him  out  of  it.  If  one  stand  god 
father  to  a  book,  the  other  forthwith  enters  as 
coroner  with  a  verdict  of  "found  dead."  Not  un- 
frequently  each  unites  in  himself  the  two  charac 
ters,  and  assists  at  the  christening  of  some  poor 
lump  that  never  had  life  in  it  at  all.  In  this  way, 
every  author  has  the  inestimable  privilege  ac 
corded  him  of  sitting  on  two  stools.  If  he  have 
much  of  a  soul  in  him,  he  kicks  them  both  over;  if 
not,  he  subsides  quietly  between  them  and  disap 
pears  forever. 

The  necessary  consequence  of  this  state  of 
things  is,  that  no  book  is  measured  by  any  stand 
ard  of  art.  It  is  commended  precisely  in  pro 
portion  as  it  has  vibrated  more  or  less  widely  on 
this  or  that  side  of  the  calm  centre  of  rest  into  the 
misty  region  of  partisanship.  Or,  yet  worse,  it  is 
not  the  book,  but  the  author,  that  is  reviewed. 
This  simplifies  the  matter  still  more.  We  borrow 
a  man's  book  merely  to  knock  him  over  the  sconce 
with,  and  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  it  is  heavy 
enough  to  do  the  business  effectually.  It  were  a 
great  blessing,  could  the  present  system  be 
exactly  reversed.  The  critic  should  write  under 
his  own  name,  while  the  book  to  be  reviewed 
should  be  given  him  with  that  of  the  author  care 
fully  erased  from  the  title-page.  This  lion's  hide 


Browning's  Plays  and  Poems  169 

of  anonymousness,  what  does  it  not  cover! 
Wrapped  in  that,  how  safely  does  the  small  critic 
literally  bray  some  helpless  giant  to  death  in  his 
critical  mortar!  It  would  be  well  for  all  of  us, 
if  we  could  be  more  thoughtful  of  our  responsi 
bilities,  if  we  could  remember  that  for  us  also  that 
inexorable  janua  Ditis,  the  pastry-cook's  shop, 
stands  always  open,  that  in  the  midst  of  literary 
life  we  are  in  the  hands  of  the  trunk-maker. 

The  mistake  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  all  this 
confusion  has  been  the  supposition,  that  there  is 
no  absolute  standard  of  excellence  to  which  a  book 
may  be  referred.  It  has  been  taken  for  granted, 
that  the  critic,  as  well  as  the  poet,  is  born.  And, 
indeed,  though  m#n  is  said  to  be  the  only  animal 
which  comes  into  the  world  entirely  helpless,  it 
would  seem  that  an  exception  might  be  made  in 
favor  of  the  critic.  He  is  often  fully  as  competent 
to  his  task  on  the  day  of  his  birth,  as  at  any  other 
period  during  his  life;  we  might  even  say  fitter. 
For,  let  him  but  make  any  dithyrambic  pen- 
scratches  upon  a  piece  of  paper,  and  the  Society 
of  Northern  Antiquaries  would  discover  therein  a 
copy  of  some  Runic  inscription;  whereas  even  that 
enthusiastic  body  of  scholars  might  fail  to  detect 
any  latent  meaning  in  the  seemingly  clearer  pro 
ductions  of  his  maturer  years.  If  the  writing  of 
books  belong  to  one  sphere  of  art,  the  writing  of 
reviews  belongs  to  another  and  more  ingenious  one. 
The  two  accomplishments  make  a  happy  antithe 
sis.  If  the  author  endeavor  to  show  how  much 
he  knows,  the  critic,  on  the  contrary,  seems  striv- 


170  The  Round  Table 

ing  to  prove  how  much  he  can  be  ignorant  of. 
The  comprehension  of  our  own  ignorance  is  the 
latest  and  most  difficult  acquisition  of  experience. 
Is  the  critic  to  be  blamed,  that  he  starts  in  life  with 
out  it?  There  are  some  things  which  he  under 
stands,  and  some  which  he  does  not.  The  defect 
of  his  mind  is,  that  he  cannot  distinguish  with 
enough  precision  between  these  two  classes  of 
ideas. 

We  wish  it  to  be  distinctly  understood,  that  we 
are  speaking  of  criticism  upon  works  of  art  alone. 
With  mere  rhymers  the  critic  ought  to  have  noth 
ing  to  do.  Time  will  satirize  and  silence  them  ef 
fectually  enough.  For  it  is  only  in  regard  to 
judgment  upon  works  of  art  that  inspiration  is 
conceded  to  the  critic.  For  this  only,  no  natural 
aptness,  no  previous  study,  is  deemed  necessary. 
Here  reigns  an  unmixed  democracy.  One  man's 
want  of  taste  is  just  as  good  as  another's,  and  it 
is  the  inalienable  birthright  of  both.  To  pass 
sentence  on  a  President's  Message,  or  a  Secre 
tary's  Report,  one  needs  to  be  up  with  the  front 
of  the  time  in  his  statistics  and  his  political  history. 
A  half-hour's  reading  in  Johnson's  "Lives  of  the 
Poets"  will  furnish  him  with  phrases  enough  to 
lay  Wordsworth  on  the  shelf  forever. 

We  have  not  alluded  yet  to  the  greatest  stum 
bling-block  in  the  way  of  the  critic.  His  position 
is  not  so  much  that  of  a  teacher  as  of  a  representa 
tive.  He  is  not  expected  to  instruct,  but  rather 
to  reflect,  his  constituency.  He  may  be  preju 
diced  or  ignorant  himself,  as  it  happens,  but  he 


Browning's  Plays  and  Poems  171 

must  be  the  exponent  of  their  united  ignorance  and 
prejudice.  What  they  expect  to  be  furnished 
with  is  their  own  opinion,  not  his.  For,  in  a  mat 
ter  of  aesthetics,  it  is  pretty  generally  conceded, 
that  instinct  is  a  greater  matter  than  any  amount 
of  cultivation.  Then,  too,  the  larger  proportion 
of  the  critic's  constituents  are  a  mob  who  consider 
their  education  as  completed,  and  there  is  no  igno 
rance  so  impenetrable  or  so  dangerous  as  a  half- 
learning  satisfied  with  itself.  For  education,  as 
we  commonly  practise  it,  amounts  simply  to  the 
rooting  out  of  God's  predilections  and  the  plant 
ing  of  our  own  in  their  stead.  Every  indigenous 
germ  is  carefully  weeded  away,  and  the  soil  ex 
hausted  in  producing  a  scanty  alien  crop.  The 
safe  instincts  of  nature  are  displaced  by  conven 
tional  sciolisms. 

Accordingly,  whenever  Phoebus  summons  a 
new  ministry,  the  critic  finds  himself  necessarily  in 
opposition.  The  only  intrinsic  evidence  which 
anything  can  bring  with  it,  that  it  is  fresh  from 
the  great  creative  heart  of  nature,  is  its  entire  new 
ness.  Nature  never  made  anything  old.  Yet  are 
wrinkles  the  only  stamp  of  genuineness  which  the 
critic  feels  safe  in  depending  upon.  He  is  de 
lighted  if  he  find  something  like  Pope  or  Gold 
smith,  and  triumphantly  takes  to  task  the  unfortu 
nate  poet  who  is  unclassical  enough  to  be  simply 
like  himself.  Original  minds  are  never  wedge- 
shaped.  They  thrust  themselves  with  a  crushing 
bluntness  against  the  prejudices  of  a  dogmatic 
public.  Only  the  humorist  can  steal  a  march  upon 


172  The  Round  Table 

the  world.  His  weapon  has  the  edge  of  Mimer's 
sword,  and  many  an  ancient  fallacy  finds  the  head 
loose  upon  its  shoulders  in  attempting  to  shake  a 
smiling  denial  of  the  decollation. 

It  has  been  a  fortunate  circumstance  for  Ger 
man  literature,  that  those  who  first  gave  a  tone  to 
the  criticism  of  poetry  were  themselves  poets. 
They  best  could  interpret  the  laws  of  art  who 
were  themselves  concerned  in  the  making  of  them. 
In  England,  on  the  other  hand,  those  who  should 
have  been  simple  codifiers  usurped  a  legislative 
function,  and  poetry  has  hardly  yet  recovered 
from  the  injury  done  it  by  such  men  as  Gifford 
and  Jeffrey.  Poetry  was  measured  by  a  conven 
tional,  not  an  absolute,  standard, — the  ocean 
sounded  with  a  ten-foot  pole!  Uniformity  sup 
planted  unity,  polish  was  allowed  to  pass  muster 
for  strength,  and  smpothness  was  an  adequate  sub 
stitute  for  depth.  Nothing  was  esteemed  very 
good,  save  what  was  a  repetition  of  something 
originally  not  the  best.  The  one  drop  of  original 
meaning  must  go  through  endless  homoeopathic 
dilutions.  That  only  was  poetry  which  the  critics 
could  have  written  themselves.  A  genius  was  one 
whose  habits  shocked  the  prejudices  of  his  less 
gifted  fellow-citizens,  and  whose  writings  never 
did, — who  was  unlike  everybody  else  in  his  life, 
and  exactly  like  everybody  else  in  his  works.  The 
annotation  of  some  incautious  commentator  has 
dethroned  the  soul  of  Sir  John  Cheke  from  its 
mysterious  excarnation  in  Milton's  sonnet.  But 
there  is  a  sound  in  the  name  suggestive  of  such 


Browning's  Plays  and  Poems  173 

gentlest  commonplace,  that  we  can  almost  fancy 
its  office  to  have  been  to  transmigrate  through 
many  generations  of  these  geniuses.  We  even 
think  we  could  point  out  the  exact  locality  of  its 
present  dwelling-place. 

The  system  which  erected  ordinary  minds  into 
the  judges  and  arbiters  of  extraordinary  ones  is 
quite  too  flattering  to  be  easily  overthrown.  The 
deduction  of  a  set  of  rules,  and  those  founded 
wholly  in  externals,  from  the  writings  of  the  poets 
of  any  particular  age,  for  the  government  of  all 
their  successors,  was  a  scheme  worthy  of  Chinese 
exactitude  in  sameness.  Unfortunately,  too,  the 
rules,  such  as  they  are,  were  made  up  from  very 
narrow  and  limited  originals.  A  smooth  fidelity 
to  the  artificial,  and  not  truth  to  nature,  was  estab 
lished  as  the  test  of  true  poetry.  So  strict  was 
the  application,  that  even  Doctor  Darwin,  who, 
but  for  this,  might  have  been  as  great  a  poet  as 
Hayley,  was  found  guilty  of  an  occasional  ex 
travagance.  That  the  criticisms  on  poetry  which 
were  written  in  the  English  tongue  thirty  or  forty 
years  ago  were  serious  would  seem  incredible, 
could  we  not  confute  our  doubts  by  reference  to 
living  specimens.  Criticism  is  no  more  in  earnest 
now  than  then.  One  phase  of  half-learning  has 
only  taken  the  place  of  another.  It  still  busies 
itself  about  words  and  phrases,  syllables,  feet,  and 
accents,  still  forgets  that  it  is  the  soul  only  which 
is  and  keeps  alive.  Now,  though  we  have  been 
compelled  to  enlarge  the  circle  of  our  poetical 
sympathies,  whether  we  would  or  not,  and  to 


174  The  Round  Table 

admit  as  even  great  poets  writers  who  were  orig 
inally  received  With  a  universal  hoot  of  critical 
derision,  the  same  narrow  principle  governs  us 
still.  We  continue  to  condemn  one  poet  by  the 
merits  of  another,  instead  of  commending  him  for 
his  own,  and,  after  vainly  resisting  the  claims  of 
Wordsworth  and  Coleridge,  we  endeavor  to  quash 
all  new  ones  by  a  comparison  with  them.  All 
that  we  would  suggest  to  our  brother  critics  is, 
that  they  should  be  willing  to  be  delighted,  and 
that  they  should  get  rid  of  the  idea  that  it  is  a 
weakness  to  be  pleased.  Let  us  consider  if  we 
have  not  esteemed  it  necessary  to  impress  upon 
the  poets  a  certain  superiority  of  nature,  lest  they 
might  combine  to  dethrone  us.  Have  we  not 
put  ourselves  somewhat  in  the  condition  of  that 
Spanish  commander  who,  having  assured  the  sav 
ages  that  he  was  a  child  of  the  sun,  was  thence 
forward  constrained  to  express  a  contempt  for 
whatever  gold  he  saw,  though  that  was  the  very 
thing  he  had  come  in  search  of? 

In  the  matter  of  versification,  we  have  been 
especially  incautious.  Here,  at  least,  was  a  purely 
mechanical  process,  where  the  ground  was  firm 
beneath  our  feet.  Hath  not  a  critic  ears?  Hath 
he  not  fingers  on  which  he  can  number  as  high  as 
ten,  recounting  the  two  thumbs  for  an  Alexan 
drine?  Do  we  not  see  in  this  a  complete  natural 
outfit,  demanding  only  the  coexistence  of  a  mathe 
matical  proficiency  to  the  extent  we  have  hinted? 
There  are  critics  yet  living — we  shudder  to  say  it, 
but  remember  that  Mormonism  were  incredible, 


Browning's  Plays  and  Poems  175 

had  we  not  ourselves  seen  it — who  sincerely  be 
lieve  that  poets  construct  their  verses  by  such 
digital  enumeration.  We  might  account  on  this 
principle  (since  it  would  be  absurd  to  suppose 
them  intentional)  for  the  occasional  roughnesses 
in  Shakspeare.  Perhaps  he  lost  a  finger  in  one  of 
those  poaching  expeditions  of  his,  and  the  bitter 
ness  with  which  he  must  have  felt  his  loss,  after 
he  had  taken  up  his  final  profession,  will  furnish 
the  commentators  with  additional  proof  that  all 
his  stupid  justices  were  intended  as  gibes  at  Sir 
Thomas  Lucy.  At  the  same  time,  the  bountiful 
foresight  of  Providence  in  regard  to  our  own  ears 
might  lead  us  to  suspect  the  presence  of  such  use 
ful  ornaments  in  the  poet  also. 

If  Sir  Thomas  Browne  had  suggested  remorse 
for  having  attempted  to  define  the  limits  of  poetry 
as  a  reason  for  Aristotle's  drowning  himself  in  the 
Euripus,  there  had  been  at  least  some  smack  of 
poetical  justice  in  the  suicide.  There  never  has 
been  a  great  work  of  art  which  did  not  in  some 
particular  transcend  old  rules  and  establish  new 
ones  of  its  own.  Newness,  boldness,  self-sustained 
strength,  these  are  the  characteristics  of  such 
works  as  the  world  will  sooner  or  later  take  to  its 
heart.  Yet  have  we  critics  deemed  it  possible  to 
establish  a  formula,  by  which,  given  pen,  ink, 
paper,  and  subject,  a  wholly  unknown  quantity 
(and  quality)  of  immortality  might  be  obtained. 
We  would  confine  genius  to  what  we  can  under 
stand  of  the  processes  by  which  some  other  and 
perhaps  inferior  mind  produced  its  results.  We 


176  The  Round  Table 

would,  in  fact,  establish  the  measure  of  our  own 
intellects  as  the  measure  of  truth  and  beauty.  For 
the  law  of  elective  affinities  governs  in  the  region 
of  soul  as  well  as  in  chemistry,  and  we  absorb  and 
assimilate  just  so  much  of  an  author  as  we  are 
naturally  capable  of,  and  no  effort  will  enable  us 
to  take  up  a  particle  more.  The  rest  of  him  does 
not  exist  for  us,  and  yet  may  have  a  very  definite 
existence  notwithstanding.  The  critic,  who  tries 
everything  by  his  own  peculiar  idiosyncrasy,  looks 
for  and  finds  nothing  but  himself  in  the  author  he 
reviews;  and  the  consequence  is,  that  what  he  con 
siders  criticisms  are  nothing  more  than  uncon 
scious  confessions  of  his  own  mental  deficiencies. 
Instead  of  exchanging  gifts  with  the  poet,  he 
finds  himself  in  a  state  of  war  with  him,  and  so, 
shutting  up  his  mind  like  the  temple  of  Janus,  cuts 
off  from  the  god  within  his  view  before  and  after, 
and  limits  him  to  such  contemplation  of  his  own 
walls  as  the  darkness  will  allow. 

We  have  been  speaking  of  criticisms  upon  what 
truly  deserve  the  name  of  works  of  art,  and  we 
consider  art  not  as  a  quality  innate  in  the  soul  of 
genius,  but  as  a  law  transcending  and  governing 
that.  It  is  in  the  faculty  of  obedience  that  genius 
is  superior.  Study  and  effort  produce  the  adroit 
artificer,  not  the  artist.  Talent  is  capable  of  per 
ceiving  particular  applications  of  this  law,  but  it 
is  only  genius  which  can  comprehend  it  as  a  har 
monious  whole.  We  do  not  mean  to  say  that  suc 
cessful  artifice  does  not  give  pleasure  to  the  mind; 
but  it  is  pleasure  of  an  inferior  kind,  whose  root 


Browning's  Plays  and  Poems  177 

analysis  would  discover  no  deeper  than  in  the 
emotion  of  surprise.  Construction  includes  the 
whole  of  talent,  but  is  included  in  genius.  It  is 
commonly  the  last  faculty  of  genius  which  be 
comes  conscious  and  active.  For  genius  appa 
rently  becomes  first  aware  of  a  heavenly  energy 
and  power  of  production,  and  is  for  a  time  satis 
fied  with  the  activity  of  simple  development. 
We  are  struck  with  this  fact  in  the  earlier  poems 
of  Shakspeare.  We  find  in  them  only  a  profuse 
life,  a  robust  vivacity  of  all  the  senses  and  facul 
ties,  without  definite  direction.  Yet  very  shortly 
afterward  we  hear  him 

"Desiring  this  man's  art  and  that  man's  scope." 

Genius  feels  a  necessity  of  production, — talent,  a 
desire  to  produce  an  effect.  The  stimulus  in  the 
one  case  is  from  within,  and  in  the  other  from 
without. 

Are  we  to  suppose  that  the  genius  for  poetry  is 
entirely  exhausted?  Or  would  it  not  rather  be 
wiser  to  admit  as  a  possibility  that  the  poems  we 
are  criticising  may  be  new  and  great,  and  to 
bestow  on  them  a  part  at  least  of  that  study  which 
we  dare  not  refuse  to  such  as  have  received  the 
warrant  of  time?  The  writings  of  those  poets 
who  are  established  beyond  question  as  great  are 
constantly  inculcating  upon  us  lessons  of  humility 
and  distrust  of  self.  New  depths  and  intricacies 
of  meaning  are  forever  unfolding  themselves. 
We  learn  by  degrees  that  we  had  at  first  compre 
hended,  as  it  were,  only  their  astral  spirit. 


178  The  Round  Table 

Slowly,  and,  as  it  might  seem,  almost  reluctantly, 
their  more  ethereal  and  diviner  soul  lets  itself 
become  visible  to  us,  consents  to  be  our  interpreter 
and  companion.  The  passage  which  one  mood  of 
our  mind  found  dark  and  shadowy,  another  beholds 
winding  as  between  the  pillars  of  the  Beautiful 
Gate.  We  discover  beauties  in  exact  proportion 
as  we  have  faith  that  we  shall.  And  the  old  poets 
have  this  advantage,  that  we  bring  to  the  reading 
of  them  a  religious  and  trustful  spirit.  The  realm 
of  Shakspeare,  peopled  with  royal  and  heroic 
shades,  the  sublime  solitudes  of  Milton,  bid  us  take 
the  shoes  from  off  our  feet.  Flippancy  is  abashed 
there,  and  conceit  startles  at  the  sound  of  its  own 
voice;  for  the  making  of  true  poetry  is  almost 
equally  divided  between  the  poet  and  the  reader. 
To  the  consideration  of  universally  acknowledged 
masterpieces  we  are  willing  to  contribute  our  own 
share,  and  to  give  earnest  study  and  honest  en 
deavor.  Full  of  meaning  was  that  ancient  belief, 
that  the  spirits  of  wood,  and  water,  and  rock,  and 
mountain  would  grant  only  an  enforced  com 
munion.  The  compulsion  they  awaited  was  that 
of  a  pure  mind  and  a  willing  spirit. 

The  critic,  then,  should  never  compress  the 
book  he  comments  on  within  the  impoverishing 
limits  of  a  mood.  He  should  endeavor  rather  to 
estimate  an  author  by  what  he  is  than  by  what  he 
is  not.  He  should  test  the  parts  of  a  poem,  not 
by  his  own  preconceptions,  but  by  the  motive  and 
aim  of  the  whole.  He  should  try  whether,  by  any 
possibility,  he  can  perceive  a  unity  in  it  toward 


Browning's  Plays  and  Poems  179 

which  the  several  parts  centre.  He  should  re 
member  that  very  many  excellent  and  enlightened 
men,  in  other  respects  good  citizens,  have  esteemed 
poetry  to  be,  not  only  an  art,  but  the  highest  of 
all  arts,  round  which  the  rest  of  what  we  call  the 
fine  arts  revolve,  receiving  light  and  warmth.  He 
should  consider  that  only  they  whose  under 
standings  are  superior  to  and  include  that  of  the 
artist  can  criticise  his  work  by  intuition.  He 
should  feel  that  his  duty  is  to  follow  his  author, 
and  not  to  guide  him.  Above  all,  he  should  con 
sider  that  the  effort  which  the  poor  author  has 
made  to  please  the  world  was  very  likely  not  in 
tended  as  a  personal  insult  to  be  indignantly 
resented,  but  should  make  an  attempt  to  read  the 
book  he  is  about  to  pronounce  judgment  upon,  and 
that,  too,  with  a  civil  attention. 

The  difference  between  a  true  poet  and  a  mere 
rhymer  is  not  one  of  degree,  but  of  kind.  It  is 
as  great  as  that  between  the  inventor  and  the 
mechanician.  The  latter  can  make  all  the  several 
parts  of  the  machine,  and  adapt  them  to  each  other 
with  a  polished  nicety.  The  idea  once  given,  he 
can  always  reproduce  the  complete  engine.  The 
product  of  his  labor  is  the  highest  finish  of  which 
brass  and  steel  are  capable,  but  it  remains  a  dead 
body  of  metal  still.  The  inventor  alone  can 
furnish  these  strong,  weariless  limbs  with  a  soul. 
In  his  creative  intellect  resides  the  spirit  of  life 
which  shall  inspire  this  earth-born  Titan,  which 
shall  set  him  at  work  in  the  forge  and  the  mill,  and 
compel  him  to  toil  side  by  side  in  friendly  concert 


180  The  Bound  Table 

with  the  forces  of  nature.  There,  in  the  dark, 
patiently  delves  the  hundred-handed  Pyrophagus, 
and  it  is  this  primal  breath  of  the  master's  spirit 
which  forever  gives  motion  and  intelligence  to  that 
iron  brain  and  those  nerves  of  steel. 

The  first  thing  that  we  have  to  demand  of  a  poet 
is,  that  his  verses  be  really  alive.  Life  we  look 
for  first,  and  growth  as  its  necessary  consequence 
and  indicator.  And  it  must  be  an  original,  not  a 
parasitic  life, — a  life  capable  of  reproduction. 
There  will  be  barnacles  which  glue  themselves  fast 
to  every  intellectual  movement  of  the  world,  and 
seem  to  possess  in  themselves  that  power  of  motion 
which  they  truly  diminish  in  that  which  sustains 
them  and  bears  them  along.  But  there  are  also 
unseen  winds  which  fill  the  sails,  and  stars  by  which 
the  courses  are  set.  The  oak,  which  lies  in  the 
good  ship's  side  an  inert  mass,  still  lives  in  the 
green  progeny  of  its  chance-dropped  acorns. 
The  same  gale  which  bends  the  creaking  mast  of 
pine  sings  through  the  tossing  hair  of  its  thousand 
sons  in  the  far  inland.  The  tree  of  the  mechanic 
bears  only  wooden  acorns. 

Is  Robert  Browning,  then,  a  poet?  Our  knowl 
edge  of  him  can  date  back  seven  years,  and  an 
immortality  which  has  withstood  the  manifold 
changes  of  so  long  a  period  can  be,  as  immor 
talities  go,  no  mushroom.  How  many  wooden 
gods  have  we  seen  during  that  period  trans 
formed  into  chopping-blocks,  or  kindled  into 
unwijling  and  sputtering  sacrificial  fires  upon  the 
altars  of  other  deities  as  ligneous  as  themselves! 


Browning's  Plays  and  Poems  181 

We  got  our  first  knowledge  of  him  from  two 
verses  of  his  which  we  saw  quoted  in  a  newspaper, 
and  from  that  moment  took  him  for  granted  as  a 
new  poet.  Since  then  we  have  watched  him  with 
a  constantly  deepening  interest.  Much  that 
seemed  obscure  and  formless  in  his  earlier  produc 
tions  has  been  interpreted  by  his  later  ones. 
Taken  by  itself,  it  might  remain  obscure  and 
formless  still,  but  it  becomes  clear  and  assumes 
definite  shape  when  considered  as  only  a  part  of 
a  yet  unfinished  whole.  We  perceive  running 
through  and  knitting  together  all  his  poems  the 
homogeneous  spirit,  gradually  becoming  assured  of 
itself,  of  an  original  mind.  We  know  not  what 
higher  praise  to  bestow  on  him  than  to  say  that 
his  latest  poems  are  his  best. 

His  earlier  poems  we  shall  rather  choose  to  con 
sider  as  parts  and  illustrations  of  his  poetic  life 
than  as  poems.  We  find  here  the  consciousness 
of  wings,  the  heaven  grasped  and  measured  by  the 
aspiring  eye,  but  no  sustained  flight  as  yet. 
These  are  the  poet's  justifications  of  himself  to 
himself,  while  he  was  brooding  over  greater  de 
signs.  They  are  the  rounds  of  the  ladder  by  which 
he  has  climbed,  and  more  interesting  for  the  direc 
tion  they  indicate  than  from  any  intrinsic  worth. 
We  would  not  be  considered  as  undervaluing 
them.  Had  he  written  nothing  else,  we  should 
allow  them  as  heights  attained,  and  not  as  mere 
indications  of  upward  progress.  But  Mr.  Brown 
ing  can  afford  to  do  without  them.  And  if  he  has 
not  yet  fully  expressed  himself,  if  we  can  as  yet  see 


182  The  Round  Table 

only  the  lower  half  of  the  statue,  we  can  in  some 
measure  foretell  the  whole.  We  can  partly  judge 
whether  there  is  likely  to  be  in  it  the  simplicity  and 
comprehensiveness,  the  poise,  which  indicates  the 
true  artist.  At  least,  we  will  not  judge  it  by  its 
base,  however  the  sculptor's  fancy  may  have 
wreathed  it  with  graceful  or  grotesque  arabesques, 
to  render  it  the  worthy  footstool  of  his  crowning 
work.  Above  all,  let  us  divert  ourselves  of  the 
petty  influences  of  contemporaneousness,  and  look 
at  it  as  if  it  were  just  unburied  from  the  enbalm- 
ing  lava  of  Pompeii.  Is  the  eye  of  the  critic  so 
constituted,  that  it  can  see  only  when  turned  back 
ward? 

Mr.  Browning's  first  published  poem  was  Par 
acelsus.2  This  was  followed  by  Strafford,  a 
Tragedy,  of  which  we  know  only  that  it  was  "acted 
at  the  Theatre  Royal,  Covent  Garden."  We  do 
not  need  it  in  order  to  get  a  distinct  view  of  his 
steady  poetical  growth.  Next  comes  Sordello,  a 
Poem;  and  the  list  is  completed  by  Bells  and 
Pomegranates,  a  series  of  lyrical  and  dramatic 
poems  published  at  intervals  during  the  last  six 
years.  Were  we  to  estimate  Paracelsus  and  Sor 
dello  separately  and  externally  as  individual 
poems,  without  taking  into  consideration  their 
antecedent  or  consequent  internal  relations,  we 
should  hardly  do  justice  to  the  author.  Viewed 
by  itself,  Sordello  Would  incline  us  to  think  that 
Mr.  Browning  had  lost  in  simplicity,  clearness, 

2  This  is,  of  course,  incorrect.     "Pauline"  was  published  two  years 
earlier  than  "Paracelsus,"  in  1833.— ED. 


Browning's  Plays  and  Poems  183 

and  directness  of  aim,  in  compactness  and  decision 
of  form,  and  in  unity  of  effect.  We  may  as  well 
say  bluntly,  that  it  is  totally  incomprehensible  as 
a  connected  whole.  It  reminds  one  of  Coleridge's 
epigram  on  his  own  Ancient  Mariner:  — 

"Your  poem  must  eternal  be, 
Dear  Sir,  it  cannot  fail; 
For    'tis   incomprehensible, 
And  without  head  or  tail." 


It  presents  itself  to  us,  at  first  view,  as  a  mere 
nebulosity,  triumphantly  defying  the  eye  to  con 
centrate  itself  on  any  one  point.  But  if  we  con 
sider  it  intently,  as  possibly  having  some  definite 
relation  to  the  author's  poetic  life,  we  begin  to  per 
ceive  a  luminous  heart  in  the  midst  of  the  misty 
whirl,  and,  indeed,  as  a  natural  consequence  of  it. 
By  dint  of  patient  watchfulness  through  such  tele 
scope  as  we  possess,  we  have  even  thought  that  it 
might  not  be  wholly  incapable  of  resolution  as  a 
system  by  itself.  It  is  crowded  full  of  images, 
many  of  them  truly  grand.  Here  and  there  it 
opens  cloudily,  and  reveals  glimpses  of  profound 
thought  and  conception  of  character.  The  sketch 
of  Taurello,  the  Italian  captain  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  drawn  rapidly,  as  with  a  bit  of  charcoal  on 
a  rough  wall,  is  masterly.  Perhaps  we  should  de 
fine  what  is  in  itself  indefinable  as  well  as  may  be, 
if  we  say  that  we  find  in  Sordello  the  materials  of 
a  drama,  profuse,  but  as  yet  in  formless  solution, 
not  crystallized  firmly  round  the  thread  of  any 
precise  plot,  but  capable  of  it.  We  will  say  that 


184  The  Round  Table 

it  was  a  fine  poem  before  the  author  wrote  it.  In 
reading  it,  we  have  seemed  to  ourselves  to  be 
rambling  along  some  wooded  ridge  in  the  tropics. 
Here  gigantic  vines  clamber  at  random,  hanging 
strange  trees  with  clusters  that  seem  dipped  in 
and  dripping  with  the  sluggish  sunshine.  Here 
we  break  our  w'ay  through  a  matted  jungle,  where, 
nevertheless,  we  stumble  over  giant  cactuses  in 
bloom,  lolling  delighted  in  the  sultry  air.  Now 
and  then  a  gap  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  some  ravish 
ing  distance,  with  a  purple  mountain-peak  or  two, 
and  all  the  while  clouds  float  over  our  heads, 
gorgeous  and  lurid,  which  we  may  consider  as 
whales  or  camels,  just  as  our  Polonian  fancy 
chooses. 

A  book  is  often  termed  obscure  and  unintelli 
gible  by  a  kind  of  mental  hypallage,  which  ex 
changes  the  cases  of  the  critic  and  the  thing  criti 
cised.  But  we  honestly  believe  that  Sordello  is 
enveloped  in  mists,  of  whose  begetting  we  are 
quite  guiltless.  It  may  have  a  meaning,  but,  as 
the  logicians  say,  a  posse  ad  esse  non  valet  argu- 
mentum.  Or  the  meaning  may  be  in  the  same 
category  with  those  flitting  islands  of  the  Canary 
group,  which  vanished  as  soon  as  seen,  and  of 
which  stout  Sir  John  Hawkins  says  mournfully, 
that  "it  should  seem  he  was  not  yet  born  to  whom 
God  hath  appointed  the  finding  of  them."  Ob 
scurity  is  a  luxury  in  which  no  young  author  has 
a  right  to  indulge  himself.  We  allow  writers  of 
established  reputations  to  tax  our  brains  to  a 
limited  extent,  because  we  expect  to  find  some- 


Browning's  Plays  and  Poems  185 

thing,  and  feel  a  little  natural  delicacy  about  con 
fessing  that  we  come  back  from  the  search  without 
a  mare's  egg  or  so,  at  the  very  least.  Then,  too, 
there  are  some  writers  whose  obscurity  seems  to 
be  their  chief  merit.  Of  these,  some  of  the  Persian 
religious  poets,  and,  above  all,  the  "later  Platon- 
ists,"  may  serve  as  examples.  These  have  a  title 
by  prescription  to  every  imaginable  form  of  obfus- 
cation.  When  we  hear  that  anyone  has  retired 
into  obscurity,  we  can  fancy  him  plunging  into 
the  speculations  of  these  useful  men.  Before  we 
had  seen  the  Epistolce  Obscurorum  Virorum,  we 
took  it  for  granted  as  a  collection  of  their  corre 
spondence,  though  we  found  it  hard  to  conceive 
of  any  contemporary  class  of  persons  who  corre 
sponded  with  them;  in  the  smallest  particular. 

We  do  not  by  any  means  join  in  the  vulgar 
demand,  that  authors  should  write  down  to  the 
average  understanding;  because  we  have  faith  that 
this  understanding  is  becoming  equal  to  higher 
and  higher  tasks  from  year  to  year.  Nor  should 
we  be  thankful  for  that  simplicity  which  many  in 
culcate,  and  by  which  they  mean  that  an  author 
should  be  as  artificial  and  as  flat  as  he  can.  The 
simplicity  of  one  age  can  never  be  that  of  the  next. 
That  which  was  natural  to  Homer  would  be  a 
mechanical  contrivance  now.  Our  age  is  emi 
nently  introspective.  It  is  constantly  asking  itself 
(with  no  very  satisfactory  result),  Whence?  and 
Whither?  and  though  seven  cities  quarreled  over 
one  limb  of  this  problem  after  Homer's  death,  it 
is  hardly  probable  that  he  ever  asked  himself  the 


186  The  Round  Table 

question,    whence   he   came,    or   whither   he   was 
going,  in  the  whole  course  of  his  life.     Our  poets 
do  not  sing  to  an  audience  who  can  neither  read 
nor  write.     The  persons  who  pay  for  their  verses 
are  not  a  half-dozen  of  petty  kings,  who  would  not 
(as  the  boys  say)  know  B  from  a  bull's  foot,  and 
the  polish  of  whose  courts  would  be  pretty  well 
paralleled  in  that  of  his  present  Gracious  Majesty 
of  Ashantee.     The   law   of   demand  and   supply 
rules  everywhere,  and  we  doubt  not  that  Apollo 
composed  bucolics  in  words  of  one  syllable  for 
the  edification  of  his  serene  dunceship  Admetus. 
His  sheep    (a  less   critical   audience)    may  have 
heard  grander  music,  of  which  Orpheus  perhaps 
caught  echoes  among  the  hills.     We  cannot  have 
back  the  simplicity  of  the  age  to  which  it  was  ad 
dressed.     Our  friend  Jinks,  who  is  so  clamorous 
for  it,  must  wear  raw  bull's-hide,  or  that  still  less 
expensive   undress   of    Sir   Richard   Blackmore's 
Pict.     The  reading  public  cannot  have  its  cake 
and  eat  it  too,  still  less  can  it  have  the  cake  which 
it  ate  two  thousand  years  ago.     Moreover,  we  are 
not  Greeks,  but  Goths;  and  the  original  blood  is 
still  so  vivacious  in  our  veins,  that  our  rustic  archi 
tects,    though    admitting,    as    a    matter    of    pure 
aesthetics,  that  all  modern  meeting-houses  should 
be  exact  Grecian  temples  or  tombs   (steeple  and 
all),  will  yet  contrive  to  smuggle  a  pointed  win 
dow  somewhere  into  the  back  of  the  building,  or 
the  belfry. 

Having  glanced  confusedly  at  Sordello,  as  far 
as  it  concerns  ourselves,  let  us  try  if  we  can  dis- 


Browning's  Plays  and  Poems  187 

cover  that  it  has  any  more  distinct  relation  to  the 
author.  And  here  we  ought  naturally  to  take  it 
in  connection  with  Paracelsus.  From  this  point 
of  view,  a  natural  perspective  seems  to  arrange 
itself,  and  a  harmony  is  established  between  the 
two  otherwise  discordant  poems.  Paracelsus,  then, 
appears  to  us  to  represent,  and  to  be  the  outlet  of, 
that  early  life  of  the  poet  which  is  satisfied  with 
aspiration  simply;  Sordello,  that  immediately  suc 
ceeding  period  when  power  has  become  conscious, 
but  exerts  itself  for  the  mere  pleasure  it  feels  in 
the  free  play  of  its  muscles,  without  any  settled 
purpose.  Presently  we  shall  see  that  it  has  de 
fined  and  concentrated  itself,  and  set  about  the 
production  of  solid  results.  There  is  not  less 
power;  it  is  only  deeper,  and  does  not  dissipate 
itself  over  so  large  a  surface.  The  range  is  not 
narrower,  but  choicer. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  Bells  and  Pomegranates. 
And  here  we  are  met  on  the  very  threshold  by  the 
difficulty  of  selection.  Not  only  are  the  lyrics 
singularly  various  in  tone  and  character,  but,  in 
the  dramas,  that  interdependence  of  the  parts, 
which  is  one  of  their  most  striking  and  singular 
merits,  makes  any  passage  taken  by  itself  do  great 
injustice  to  the  author.  These  dramas  are  not 
made  up  of  a  number  of  beauties,  distinct  and 
isolate  as  pearls,  threaded  upon  the  string  of  the 
plot.  Each  has  a  permeating  life  and  spirit  of  its 
own.  When  we  would  break  off  any  fragments, 
we  cannot  find  one  which  would  by  itself  approach 
completeness.  It  is  like  tearing  away  a  limb  from 


188  The  Round  Table 

a  living  body.  For  these  are  works  of  art  in  the 
truest  sense.  They  are  not  aggregations  of  dis 
sonant  beauties,  like  some  modern  sculptures, 
against  which  the  Apollo  might  bring  an  action 
of  trover  for  an  arm,  and  the  Antinoiis  for  a  leg, 
but  pure  statues,  in  which  everything  superfluous 
has  been  sternly  chiselled  away,  and  whose  won 
derful  balance  might  seem  tameness  to  the  ordi 
nary  observer,  who  demands  strain  as  an  evidence 
of  strength.  They  are  not  arguments  on  either 
side  of  any  of  the  great  questions  which  divide  the 
world.  The  characters  in  them  are  not  bundles 
of  different  characteristics,  but  their  gradual 
development  runs  through  the  whole  drama  and 
makes  the  life  of  it.  We  do  not  learn  what  they 
are  by  what  they  say  of  themselves,  or  by  what  is 
said  of  them,  so  much  as  by  what  they  do  or  leave 
undone.  Nor  does  any  drama  seem  to  be  written 
for  the  display  of  some  one  character  which  the 
author  has  conceived  and  makes  a  favorite  of. 
No  undue  emphasis  is  laid  upon  any.  Each  fills 
his  part,  and  each,  in  his  higher  or  lower  grade, 
his  greater  or  less  prominence,  is  equally  necessary 
to  the  rest.  Above  all,  his  personages  are  not 
mere  mouthpieces  for  the  author's  idiosyncrasies. 
We  take  leave  of  Mr.  Browning  at  the  end  of 
Sordello,  and,  except  in  some  shorter  lyrics,  see  no 
more  of  him.  His  men  and  women  are  men  and 
women,  and  not  Mr.  Browning  masquerading  in 
different-colored  dominos.  We  implied  as  much 
when  we  said  that  he  was  an  artist.  For  the 
artist-period  begins  precisely  at  the  point  where 


Browning's  Plays  and  Poems  189 

the  pleasure  of  expressing  self  ends,  and  the  poet 
becomes  sensible  that  his  highest  duty  is  to  give 
voice  to  the  myriad  forms  of  nature,  which,  want 
ing  him,  were  dumb.  The  term  art  includes  many 
lower  faculties  of  the  poet;  but  this  appears  to  us 
its  highest  and  most  comprehensive  definition. 
Hence  Shakspeare,  the  truest  of  artists,  is  also 
nothing  more  than  a  voice.  We  seek  in  vain  in 
his  plays  for  any  traces  of  his  personal  character 
or  history.  A  man  may  be  even  a  great  poet  with 
out  being  an  artist.  Byron  was,  through  all 
whose  works  we  find  no  individual,  self-subsistent 
characters.  His  heroes  are  always  himself  in  so 
many  different  stage-costumes,  and  his  Don  Juan 
is  his  best  poem,  and  approaches  more  nearly 
a  work  of  art,  by  just  so  much  as  he  has  in  that 
expressed  himself  most  truly  and  untheatric- 
ally. 

Regarding  Mr.  Browning's  dramas  in  this  light, 
and  esteeming  them  as  so  excellent  and  peculiar, 
we  shall  not  do  him  the  injustice  of  picking  out 
detached  beauties,  and  holding  them  up  as  fair 
specimens  of  his  power.  For  his  wholeness  is  one 
great  proof  of  this  power.  He  may  be  surpassed 
by  one  contemporary  in  finish,  by  another  in 
melody;  but  we  shall  not  try  him  by  comparison. 
We  are  thankful  to  him  for  being  what  he  is,  for 
contriving  to  be  himself  and  to  keep  so.  Why, 
in  ordinary  society,  is  it  not  sometimes  the  solitary 
merit  of  Smith,  and  all  that  makes  him  endurable, 
that  he  is  not  exactly  Brown?  We  are  quite 
willing  to  be  grateful  for  whatever  gifts  it  has 


190  The  Round  Table 

pleased  God  to  bestow  on  any  musically-endowed 
spirit.  The  scale  is  composed  of  various  notes, 
and  cannot  afford  to  do  without  any  of  them,  or 
to  have  one  substituted  for  another. 

It  is  not  so  much  for  his  expression  of  isolated 
thoughts  as  for  his  power  of  thinking,  that  we 
value  Browning.  Most  readers  prefer  those 
authors  in  whom  they  find  the  faculty  of  observa 
tion,  to  those  in  whom  power  of  thought  is  pre 
dominant,  for  the  simple  reason,  that  sensation  is 
easier  than  reflection.  By  observation  we  mean 
that  quality  of  mind  which  discriminates  and  sets 
forth  particular  ideas  by  and  for  themselves  alone. 
Thought  goes  deeper,  and  employs  itself  in  de 
tecting  and  exemplifying  the  unity  which  embraces 
and  underlies  all  ideas.  A  writer  of  the  first  class 
reaches  the  mass  of  readers  because  they  can  verify 
what  he  says  by  their  own  experience,  and  we 
cannot  help  thinking  tolerably  well  of  those  who 
put  us  in  mind  of  our  own  penetration.  He  re 
quires  them  only  to  feel.  A  writer  of  the  other 
kind  taxes  the  understanding,  and  demands  in 
turn  an  exercise  of  thought  on  the  part  of  his 
readers.  Both  of  these  faculties  may,  of  course, 
differ  in  degree,  may  be  more  or  less  external, 
more  or  less  profound,  as  it  may  happen.  They 
coexist  in  the  same  mind,  overlapping  one  the 
other  by  a  wider  or  more  limited  extent.  The 
predominance  of  one  or  the  other  determines  the 
tendency  of  the  mind.  Those  are  exceptional 
natures  in  which  they  balance  each  other  as  in 
Shakspeare.  We  may  instance  Browne  and 


Browning's  Plays  and  Poems  191 

Montaigne  as  examples  in  one  kind,  Bacon  as  an 
illustration  of  the  other. 

It  is  because  we  find  in  Browning  eminent  qual 
ities  as  a  dramatist,  that  we  assign  him]  his  place 
as  a  thinker.  This  dramatic  faculty  is  a  far  rarer 
one  than  we  are  apt  to  imagine.  It  does  not  con 
sist  in  a  familiarity  with  stage  effect,  in  the 
capacity  for  inventing  and  developing  a  harmoni 
ous  and  intricate  plot,  nor  in  an  appreciation  of 
passion  as  it  reveals  itself  in  outward  word  or 
action.  It  lies  not  in  a  knowledge  of  character, 
so  much  as  in  an  imaginative  conception  of  the 
springs  of  it.  Neither  each  of  these  singly,  nor 
all  of  them  together,  without  that  unitary  faculty 
which  fuses  the  whole  and  subjects  them  all  to  the 
motion  of  a  single  will,  constitute  a  dramatist. 
Among  the  crowd  of  play-writers  contemporary 
with  Shakspeare,  we  can  find  poets  enough,  but 
can  we  name  three  who  were  dramatists  in  any 
other  than  a  technical  sense?  In  endeavoring  to 
eliminate  the  pure  dramatic  faculty,  by  precipi 
tating  and  removing  one  by  one  the  grosser 
materials  which  it  holds  in  solution,  we  have  left 
the  Greek  drama  entirely  out  of  the  question. 
The  motive  of  the  ancient  tragedy  differs  from 
that  of  the  modern  in  kind.  Nor  do  we  speak  of 
this  faculty  as  a  higher  or  lower  one,  but  simply 
as  being  distinct  and  rare. 

Mr.  Browning's  humor  is  as  genuine  as  that  of 
Carlyle,  and  if  his  laugh  have  not  the  "earthquake" 
character  with  which  Emerson  has  so  happily 


192  The  Round  Table 

labeled  the  shaggy  merriment  of  that  Jean  Paul 
Burns,  yet  it  is  always  sincere  and  hearty,  and 
there  is  a  tone  of  meaning  in  it  which  always 
sets  us  thinking.  Had  we  room,  we  should  be 
glad  to  give  a  full  analysis  of  his  Soul's  Tragedy, 
which  abounds  in  the  truest  humor,  flitting 
from  point  to  point  with  all  the  electric  sparkle 
and  condensed  energy  of  wit.  Wit  employs 
itself  about  externals  and  conventionalities.  Its 
merit  lies  quite  as  much  in  nicety  of  expression 
as  in  the  idea  expressed,  or  even  more.  For  it  is 
something  which  may  be  composed,  and  is  there 
fore  necessarily  choice  of  form.  Humor  goes 
deeper,  bases  itself  upon  the  eternal,  and  not  the 
ephemeral,  relations  of  things,  and  is  something 
interfused  through  the  whole  nature  of  the  man, 
and  which,  forcing  him  to  feel  keenly  what  is 
hollow  in  the  outward  forms  of  society,  often 
makes  him  careless  of  all  form.  In  literature, 
therefore,  we  see  it  overleaping  or  breaking  down 
all  barriers.  Wit  makes  other  men  laugh,  and 
that  only  once.  It  may  be  repeated  indefinitely 
to  new  audiences,  and  produce  the  same  result. 
Humor  makes  the  humorist  himself  laugh.  He  is 
a  part  of  his  humor,  and  it  can  never  be  repeated 
without  loss.  If  we  take  the  common  metaphor, 
that  humor  is  broader  than  wit,  we  shall  express 
well  enough  its  greater  carelessness  of  form  and 
precise  limit.  It  especially  behooves  a  poet,  then, 
to  be  on  his  guard  against  the  impulses  of  his 
humor.  Poetry  and  humor  are  subject  to  differ 
ent  laws  of  art,  and  it  is  dangerous  to  let  one  en- 


Browning's  Plays  and  Poems  193 

croach  upon  the  province  of  the  other.  It  may 
be  questioned,  whether  verse,  which  is  by  nature 
subject  to  strict  law,  be  the  proper  vehicle  for 
humor  at  all.  The  contrast,  to  be  sure,  between 
the  preciseness  of  the  metrical  rule  and  the  frolic 
some  license  of  the  thought,  has  something  humor 
ous  in  itself.  The  greater  swing  which  is  allowed 
to  the  humorous  poet  in  rhythm  and  rhyme,  as 
well  as  in  thought,  may  be  of  service  to  him,  and 
save  him  from  formality  in  his  serious  verses. 
Undoubtedly  the  success  of  Hood's  Bridge  of 
Sighs  was  due  in  some  degree  to  the  quaintness 
and  point  of  the  measure  and  the  rhyme,  the  secret 
of  which  he  had  learned  in  his  practice  as  a  humor 
ous  versifier.  But  there  is  danger  that  the  poet, 
in  allowing  full  scope  to  this  erratic  part  of  his 
nature,  may  be  brought  in  time  to  value  form 
generally  at  less  than  its  true  worth  as  an  element 
of  art.  We  have  sometimes  felt  a  jar  in  reading 
Mr.  Browning's  lyrical  poems,  when,  just  as  he 
has  filled  us  full  of  quiet  delight  by  some  touch  of 
pathos  or  marble  gleam  of  classical  beauty,  this 
exuberant  geniality  suggests  some  cognate  image 
of  the  ludicrous,  and  turns  round  to  laugh  in  our 
faces.  This  necessity  of  deferring  to  form  in  some 
shape  or  other  is  a  natural,  and  not  an  ingrafted, 
quality  of  human  nature.  It  often,  laughably 
enough,  leads  men,  who  have  been  totally  regard 
less  of  all  higher  laws,  to  cling  most  pertinaciously 
and  conscientiously  to  certain  purely  ceremonial 
observances.  If  the  English  courts  should  ever 
dispense  with  so  much  of  their  dignity  and 


194  The  Round  Table 

decorum  as  consists  in  horsehair,  we  have  no  doubt 
that  the  first  rogue  who  shall  be  sentenced  by  a 
wigless  judge  will  be  obstinately  convinced  of  a 
certain  unconstitutionality  in  the  proceeding,  and 
feel  himself  an  injured  man,  defrauded  of  the  full 
dignity  of  the  justice  enjoyed  by  his  ancestors. 

There  are  two  faults  of  which  we  are  chiefly 
conscious  in  Mr.  Browning's  lyrics.  The  first  is 
a  tendency  to  parenthesize  one  thought  or  meta 
phor  within  another,  and  seems  to  arise  from  fer 
tility  of  mind  and  exuberance  of  illustration, 
united  with  the  power  of  too  facile  execution. 
The  other  is  involved  in  that  humorous  element 
of  his  character  which  we  have  noticed,  and  which 
gives  him  so  keen  an  enjoyment  of  his  own 
thoughts  as  disqualifies  him  for  distinguishing 
those  of  them  which  will  strike  all  other  minds 
with  equal  distinctness  and  force,  and  those  which 
will  be  appreciated  only  by  persons  constituted 
like  himself.  From  both  these  defects  his  dramas 
are  almost  wholly  free. 

And  now,  if  we  could  be  sure  that  our  readers 
would  read  Mr.  Browning's  poems  with  the  re 
spect  and  attentive  study  they  deserve,  what 
should  hinder  us  from  saying  that  we  think  him  a 
great  poet?  However,  as  the  world  feels  uncom 
fortably  somewhere,  it  can  hardly  tell  how  or  why, 
at  hearing  people  called  great,  before  it  can  claim 
a  share  in  their  greatness  by  erecting  to  them  a 
monument  with  a  monk-Latin  inscription  on  it 
which  nine-tenths  of  their  countrymen  cannot  con 
strue,  and  as  Mr.  Browning  must  be  as  yet  com- 


Browning's  Plays  and  Poems  195 

paratively  a  young  man,  we  will  content  ourselves 
with  saying  that  he  has  in  him  the  elements  of 
greatness.  To  us  he  appears  to  have  a  wider 
range  and  greater  freedom  of  movement  than  any 
other  of  the  younger  English  poets.  In  his 
dramas  we  find  always  a  leading  design  and  a  con 
scientious  subordination  of  all  the  parts  to  it.  In 
each  one  of  them  also,  below  the  more  apparent 
and  exterior  sources  of  interest,  we  find  an  illus 
tration  of  some  general  idea  which  bears  only  a 
philosophical  relation  to  the  particular  characters, 
thoughts,  and  incidents,  and  without  which  'the 
drama  is  still  complete  in  itself,  but  which  yet  binds 
together  and  sustains  the  whole,  and  conduces  to 
that  unity  for  which  we  esteem  these  works  so 
highly.  In  another  respect  Mr.  Browning's 
dramatic  power  is  rare.  The  characters  of  his 
women  are  finely  discriminated.  No  two  are 
alike,  and  yet  the  characteristic  features  of  each 
are  touched  with  the  most  delicate  precision.  By 
far  the  greater  number  of  authors  who  have  at 
tempted  female  characters  have  given  us  mere 
automata.  They  think  it  enough,  if  they  make 
them  subordinate  to  a  generalized  idea  of  human 
nature.  Mr.  Browning  never  forgets  that  women 
are  women,  and  not  simply  human  beings,  for 
there  they  occupy  common  ground  with  men. 

Many  English  dramas  have  been  written  within 
a  few  years,  the  authors  of  which  have  established 
their  claim  to  the  title  of  poet.  We  cannot  but 
allow  that  we  find  in  them  fine  thoughts  finely 
expressed,  passages  of  dignified  and  sustained  elo- 


196  The  Round  Table 

quence,  and  as  adequate  a  conception  of  character 
as  the  reading  of  history  and  the  study  of  models 
will  furnish.  But  it  is  only  in  Mr.  Browning  that 
we  find  enough  of  freshness,  vigor,  grasp,  and  of 
that  clear  insight  and  conception  which  enable  the 
artist  to  construct  characters  from  within,  and  so 
to  make  them  real  things,  and  not  images,  as  to 
warrant  our  granting  the  honor  due  to  the 
Dramatist. 


THE  WORKS  OF  WALTER  SAVAGE 
LANDOR 


THE  WORKS  OF  WALTER  SAVAGE 
LANDOR l 

THOUGH  we  have  placed  at  the  head  of 
our  article  the  title  of  the  collected  edi 
tion  of  Lander's  works,  it  is  to  a  con 
sideration  of  his  poems,  and  in  particu 
lar  of  his  "Hellenics,"  that  we  shall  in  a  great 
measure  devote  ourselves.     It  may  at  first  sight 
seem   somewhat   of   an   anomaly   to   try   a  great 
prose-writer  by  what  he  has  written  in  verse;  but 
the  man  is  so  individual  that  the  merits  both  of 
his  prose  and  poetry  are  identical  in  kind,  and  the 
defects  which  we  are  conscious  of  in  the  latter  may 
help  us  to  a  clearer  understanding,  if  not  to  a 
clearer  definition,  of  what  is  poetry. 

To  say  of  any  writer  that  his  faults  are  pecul 
iarly  his  own,  is  in  a  certain  sense  to  commend 
him,  and,  where  these  are  largely  outweighed  by 
excellences,  it  amounts  to  a  verdict  in  favor  of  his 
originality.  Imitative  minds  invariably  seize 
upon  and  exaggerate  the  exaggerations  of  their 
model.  The  parasitic  plant  indicates  the  cracks, 
roughnesses,  and  flaws  of  the  wall  to  which  it 
clings,  for  in  these  alone  is  it  able  to  root  itself. 
If  Byron  were  morose,  a  thousand  poetasters 
bleated  savagely  from  under  wer-wolves'  skins. 
If  Carlyle  be  Teutonic,  those  will  be  found  who 

i  The  Works  of  Walter  Savage  Landor.    London :  Edward  Moxon. 
1846.    2  v. 

199 


200  The  Round  Table 

will  out-Germanize  him.  If  Emerson  be  mystic, 
the  Emersonidae  can  be  misty.  It  is  only  where 
the  superior  mind  begins  to  differ  from  the  com 
monplace  type,  or  to  diverge  from  the  simple  orbit 
of  nature,  that  inferior  ones  become  subject  to  its 
attraction.  Then  they  begin  to  gravitate  toward 
it,  are  carried  along  with  it,  and,  when  it  pauses, 
are  thrown  beyond  it.  It  is  only  the  eclipse  men 
stare  at.  It  is  not  the  star  but  the  comet  that 
gathers  a  tail.  When  we  say,  then,  that  Lander's 
faults  are  especially  Landor,  we  imply  that  he  is 
no  imitator.  When  we  say  that  he  has  no  imitat 
ors,  we  imply  that  his  faults  are  few. 

If  we  were  asked  to  name  a  writer  to  whose 
style  the  phrase  correct  would  most  exactly  apply, 
we  should  select  Landor.  Yet  it  is  not  so  at  the 
expense  of  warmth,  or  force,  or  generosity.  It  is 
only  bounded  on  every  side  by  dignity.  In  all 
those  portions  of  his  works  which  present  him  to 
us  most  nobly,  and  therefore  most  truly,  the  most 
noticeable  quality  of  the  mere  style  is  its  un- 
noticeability.  Balance  and  repose  are  its  two 
leading  characteristics.  He  has  discovered  that 
to  be  simple  is  to  be  classical.  He  observes 
measure  and  proportion  in  everything.  If  he 
throw  mud  it  is  by  drachm  and  scruple.  His 
coarsest  denunciation  may  be  conveyed  in  sen 
tences  of  just  so  many  words  spelt  in  just  such  a 
manner.  He  builds  a  paragraph  as  perfect  as  a 
Greek  temple,  no  matter  whether  Phoebus  or 
Anubis  is  to  be  housed  in  it; — for  he  is  a  coarse 
man  with  the  most  refined  perceptions.  He  is  the 


The  Works  of  Walter  Savage  Landor     201 

Avatar  of  John  Bull.     He  is  Tom  Cribb  with  the 
soul  of  Plato  in  him,  and  when  he  attacks  there  is 
no  epithet  which  seems  to  fit  him  so  well  as  bruiser. 
But  though  he  asks  us  to  many  banquets,  where, 
after  the  English  fashion,  the  conversation  at  a 
certain  point  becomes  such  as  to  compel  women  to 
withdraw;  though  he  so  obtrudes  his  coarseness 
upon  us  that  any  notice  of  him  would  be  inade 
quate  without  some  mention  of  it;  yet  this  jarring 
element  is  rather  the  rare  exception  than  the  rule 
in  his  writings.     It  affects  the  style  more  than  the 
character  of  his  works,  and  is  more  important  in 
helping  us  to  an  estimate  of  the  man,  than  of  his 
books.     An  introduction  to  him  without  a  previ 
ous  hint  of  it  Would  hardly  be  fair;  yet  we  might 
be  in  his  company  for  hours  without  discovering 
it.     We  should  be  at  a  loss  to  name  the  writer  of 
English   prose   who   is   his    superior,    or,   setting 
Shakspeare  aside,  the  writer  of  English  who  has 
furnished  us  with  so  many  or  so  delicate  aphorisms 
of  human  nature. 

Browning,  certainly  a  competent  authority,  in 
dedicating  a  drama  to  him,  calls  him  a  great 
dramatic  poet,  and  if  we  deduct  from  the  dramatic 
faculty  that  part  of  it  which  has  reference  to  a 
material  stage,  we  can  readily  concede  him  the 
title.  His  mind  has  not  the  succinctness  necessary 
to  a  writer  for  the  theatre.  It  has  too  decided  a 
tendency  to  elaboration,  and  is  more  competent 
to  present  to  the  mind  a  particular  quality  of 
character  in  every  light  of  which  it  is  susceptible, 
than  to  construct  a  unitary  character  out  of  a 


202  The  Round  Table 

combination  of  qualities.  Perhaps  we  should  be 
more  strictly  accurate  if  we  should  say  that  his 
power  lies  in  showing  how  certain  situations,  pas 
sions,  or  qualities  would  affect  the  thought  and 
speech  rather  than  the  action  of  a  character.  Of 
all  his  dramas  except  one,  he  has  himself  said  that 
they  are  more  imaginary  conversations  than 
dramas.  Of  his  "Imaginary  Conversations"  we 
may  generally  say  that  they  would  be  better  de 
fined  as  dialogues  between  the  imaginations  of  the 
persons  introduced,  than  between  the  persons 
themselves.  There  is  a  something  in  all  men  and 
women  who  deserve  the  much-abused  title  of 
individuals,  which  we  call  their  character,  some 
thing  finer  than  the  man  or  woman,  and  yet  which 
is  the  man  or  woman  nevertheless.  We  feel  it  in 
whatever  they  say  or  do,  but  it  is  better  than  their 
speech  or  deed,  and  can  be  conceived  of  apart  from 
these.  It  is  his  own  conceptions  of  the  characters 
of  different  personages  that  Landor  brings  in  as 
interlocutors.  Between  Shakspeare's  historical 
and  ideal  personages  we  perceive  no  difference  in 
point  of  reality.  They  are  alike  historical  to  us. 
We  allow  him  to  substitute  his  Richard  for  the 
Richard  of  history,  and  we  suspect  that  those  are 
few  who  doubt  whether  Caliban  ever  existed. 
Whatever  Hamlet  or  Caesar  say  we  feel  to  be 
theirs,  though  we  know  it  to  be  Shakspeare's. 
Whatever  Landor  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Pericles 
and  Michel  Angelo  and  Tell,  we  know  to  be  his, 
though  we  can  conceive  that  it  might  have  been 
theirs.  Don  Quixote  would  never  have  attacked 


The  Works  of  Walter  Savage  Landor  \    203 

any  puppets  of  his.  The  hand  which  jerked  the 
wires  and  the  mouth  which  uttered  the  speeches 
would  have  been  too  clearly  visible. 

We  cannot  so  properly  call  Landor  a  great 
thinker,  as  a  man  who  has  great  thoughts.  His 
mind  has  not  much  continuity,  as,  indeed,  we 
might  infer  from  what  he  himself  somewhere 
says — that  his  memory  is  a  poor  one.  He  is 
strong  in  details  and  concentrates  himself  upon 
points.  Hence  his  criticisms  on  authors,  though 
always  valuable  as  far  as  they  go,  are  commonly 
fragmentary.  He  makes  profound  remarks  upon 
certain  passages  of  a  poem,  but  does  not  seem  to 
aim  at  a  comprehension  of  the  entire  poet.  He 
perceives  rather  than  conceives.  He  is  fond  of 
verbal  criticism,  and  takes  up  an  author  often  in 
the  spirit  of  a  proofreader.  He  has  a  microscopic 
eye,  and  sees  with  wonderful  distinctness  what  is 
immediately  before  him.  When  he  turns  it  on  a 
poet  it  sometimes  gives  us  the  same  sort  of  feeling 
as  when  Gulliver  reports  his  discoveries  in  regard 
to  the  complexions  of  the  Brobdingnag  maids  of 
honor.  Yet,  of  course,  it  gives  him  equal  power 
for  perceiving  every  minutest  shade  of  beauty. 

In  the  historical  persons  whom  his  conversations 
introduce  to  us,  or,  to  speak  more  strictly,  who 
introduce  his  conversations  to  us,  we  are  sensible 
of  two  kinds  of  truth.  They  are  true  to  the  ex 
ternal  circumstances  and  to  the  history  of  the 
times  in  which  they  lived,  and  they  are  true  to 
Landor.  We  always  feel  that  it  is  he  who  is 
speaking,  and  that  he  has  merely  chosen  a  char- 


204  The  Round  Table 

acter  whom  he  considered  suitable  to  express  a 
particular  phase  of  his  own  mind.  He  never,  for 
a  moment,  loses  himself  in  his  characters.  He  is 
never  raised  or  depressed  by  them,  but  raises  and 
depresses  them  at  will.  If  he  choose,  he  will 
make  Pericles  talk  of  Blackwood's  Magazine,  or 
Aspasia  comment  on  the  last  number  of  the  Quar 
terly  Review.  Yet  all  the  while  every  slightest 
propriety  of  the  household  economy  and  the  ex 
ternal  life  of  the  Greeks  will  be  observed  with 
rigid  accuracy.  The  anachronism  does  not  seem 
to  be  that  Pericles  and  Anaxagoras  should  dis 
cuss  the  state  of  England,  but  that  Walter  Sav 
age  Landor  should  be  talking  modern  politics  in 
ancient  Greek, — so  thoroughly  are  the  man's 
works  impregnated  with  himself.  But  to  under 
stand  this  fully  we  must  read  all  his  writings. 
We  only  mention  it  as  affecting  the  historical 
veracity  of  his  characters,  and  not  because  it  sub 
tracts  anything  from  the  peculiar  merits  which 
belong  to  him  as  a  writer.  If  a  character  be  in 
rapport  with  his  own,  he  throws  into  it  the  whole 
energy  of  his  powerful  magnetism.  He  translates 
everything  into  Landor,  just  as  Chapman  is  said 
to  have  favored  Ajax,  in  his  version  of  the  Iliad. 
After  we  are  once  put  upon  our  guard,  we  find  a 
particular  enjoyment  in  this  intense  individuality. 
We  understand  that  he  is  only  borrowing  the  pul 
pits  of  other  people  to  preach  his  own  notions  from, 
and  we  feel  the  refreshment  which  every  one  ex 
periences  in  being  brought  w,ithin  the  more  imme 
diate  sphere  of  an  original  temperament  and  a 


The  Works  of  Walter  Savage  Landor     205 

robust  organization.  We  discover,  at  last,  that 
we  have  encountered  an  author  who  from  behind 
a  variety  of  masks  can  be  as  personally  communi 
cative  as  Montaigne. 

The  epithet  robust  seems  to  us  particularly  ap 
plicable  to  Landor.  And  his  is  the  robustness  of 
a  naturally  vigorous  constitution,  maintained  in 
a  healthy  equipoise  by  regular  exercise.  The  open 
air  breathes  through  his  writings,  and  in  reading 
him  we  often  have  a  feeling  (to  use  a  local  phrase) 
of  all  outdoors.  In  saying  this  we  refer  to  the 
general  freedom  of  spirit,  to  the  natural  inde 
pendence  confirmed  by  a  life  of  immediate  contact 
with  outward  nature,  and  only  thrown  back  the 
more  absolutely  on  its  own  resources  by  occasional 
and  reserved  commerce  with  mankind;  tolerated 
rather  than  sought  by  a  haughty,  and  at  the  same 
time  exquisitely  sensitive,  disposition.  We  should 
add,  that  his  temperament  is  one  more  keenly 
alive  to  his  own  interior  emotions  than  those  sug 
gested  to  him  from  without.  Consequently,  while 
a  certain  purity  and  refinement  suggest  an  in 
timacy  with  woods  and  fields,  the  truest  and  ten- 
derest  touches  of  his  pencil  are  those  of  human 
and  not  of  external  nature.  His  mountain  scen 
ery  is  that  of  the  soul ;  his  rural  landscapes  and  his 
interiors  are  those  of  the  heart.  If  there  should 
seem  to  be  a  contradiction  between  the  coarseness 
and  the  delicacy  we  have  attributed  to  him,  the 
inconsistency  is  in  himself.  We  may  find  the 
source  of  both  in  the  solitary  habit  of  his  mind. 
The  one  is  the  natural  independence  of  a  some- 


206  The  Round  Table 

what  rugged  organization,  whose  rough  edges 
have  never  been  smoothed  by  attrition  with  the 
world,  and  which,  unaccustomed  to  the  pliability 
and  mutual  accommodation  necessary  in  a  crowd, 
resents  every  obstacle  as  intentional,  every  brush 
of  the  elbow  as  a  personal  affront.  The  other  has 
been  fostered  by  that  habitual  tendency  of  the 
isolated  to  brood  over  and  analyze  their  own  sen 
timents  and  emotions.  Or  shall  we  say  that  the 
rough  exterior  is  assumed  as  a  shield  for  the  ten 
derness,  as  certain  insects  house  themselves  under 
a  movable  roof  of  lichen?  This  is  sometimes  the 
case,  but  we  suspect  that  in  Landor  both  qualities 
are  idiosyncratic.  That  frailest  creation  of  the 
human  imagination,  the  hamadryad,  is  the  tenant 
and  spirit  of  the  gnarled  oak,  which  grasps  the 
storm  in  its  arms.  To  borrow  a  comparison  from 
the  Greeks,  to  whom  Landor  so  constantly  refers 
us,  we  must  remember  that  Polyphemus,  while  he 
was  sharpening  the  spit  for  Ulysses,  was  pining 
for  Galatea,  and  that  his  unrequited  tenderness 
sought  solace  in  crushing  his  rival  with  half  a 
mountain. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  egoism :  one  which  is  con 
stantly  measuring  itself  by  others,  and  one  which 
as  constantly  measures  others  by  itself.  This  last 
we  call  originality.  It  secludes  a  man  from  ex 
ternal  influences,  and,  leaving  him  nothing  to  lean 
upon  but  his  own  judgments  and  impressions, 
teaches  him  their  value  and  enables  him  to  inspire 
other  men  with  the  same  estimate  of  them.  In 
this  sense  Landor  is  original.  This  gives  all  that 


The  Works  of  Walter  Savage  Landor;    207 

he  writes  a  decided  charm,  and  makes  the  better 
part  of  it  exceedingly  precious.  He  is  con 
structed  altogether  on  a  large  scale.  His  little 
nesses  are  great,  his  weaknesses  decided;  and  as 
long  as  the  larger  part  of  men  are  so  careful  to 
give  us  any  thing  rather  than  themselves,  let  us 
learn  to  be  duly  thankful  for  even  a  littleness  that 
is  sincere,  and  a  weakness  that  is  genuine.  So  en 
tirely  has  he  been  himself,  that,  while  we  cannot 
help  being  conscious  of  his  deficiencies,  we  also  feel 
compelled  to  grant  a  certain  kind  of  completeness 
in  him.  Whatever  else  he  might  have  been,  we  are 
sure  that  he  could  not  have  been  more  of  a  Landor. 
In  spite  of  the  seeming  contradictions  of  his  char 
acter,  it  would  not  be  easy  to  find  a  life  and  mind 
more  thoroughly  consistent  than  his.  A  strenuous 
persistency  marks  every  thing  about  him.  A  few 
friendships  and  a  good  many  animosities  have 
lasted  him  all  his  days.  He  may  add  to  both,  but 
he  never  lessens  the  number  of  either.  In  speak 
ing  of  a  man  constituted  as  he  is,  it  would  perhaps 
be  better  to  say  oppugnancies  than  animosities. 
For  an  animosity  properly  implies  contemporane 
ousness,  and  a  personal  feeling  toward  its  object; 
but  so  entirely  does  Landor  refer  every  thing  to 
his  absolute  self,  that  he  will  pursue  as  vindic 
tively  a  dead  error,  or  a  dead  man,  as  a  living  one. 
It  is  as  they  affect  him  that  they  are  good  or  bad. 
It  is  not  the  year  48  or  1848  that  is  past  or  pres 
ent,  but  simply  Walter  Savage  Landor.  With 
him  it  is  amicus  Plato,  arnica  veritas,  magis  amicus 
Landor.  His  sense  of  his  own  worth  is  too  large 


208  The  Round  Table 

and  too  dignified  to  admit  of  personal  piques  and 
jealousies.  He  resents  an  assault  upon  himself  as 
a  wrong  done  to  sound  literature,  and  accepts  com 
mendation  merely  as  a  tribute  to  truth. 

We  know  of  no  writer  whose  pages,  if  opened 
at  random,  are  more  sure  to  repay  us  than  those 
of  Landor.  Nowhere  shall  we  find  admirable 
thoughts  more  admirably  expressed,  nowhere  sub- 
limer  metaphors  or  more  delicate  ones,  nowhere 
a  mind  maintained  at  a  high  level  more  equally, 
or  for  longer  intervals.  There  is  no  author  who 
surpasses,  and  few  who  equal  him  in  purity  and 
elevation  of  style,  or  in  sustained  dignity  and 
weight  of  thought.  We  should  hesitate  to  name 
any  writings  but  Shakspeare's  which  would  afford 
so  large  and  so  various  a  selection  of  detached 
passages  complete  and  precious  in  themselves. 
The  rarest  and  tenderest  emotions  of  love  and 
friendship  have  never  found  a  more  adequate  his 
torian.  His  pathos  is  most  delicately  subdued. 
He  approaches  sorrow  with  so  quiet  a  footfall  and 
so  hushing  a  gesture,  that  we  are  fain  to  suspend 
our  breath  and  the  falling  of  our  tears,  lest  they 
should  break  that  tender  silence.  It  is  not  to  look 
upon  a  picture  of  grief,  but  into  the  solemn  pres 
ence  of  grief  herself,  that  he  leads  us. 

Landor  has  as  little  humor  as  Massinger,  who  in 
some  respects  resembles  him,  though  at  an  infinite 
distance  below.  All  that  he  has  is  of  a  somewhat 
gigantic  and  clumsy  sort.  He  snatches  up  some 
little  personage  who  has  offended  him,  sets  him 
on  a  high  shelf,  and  makes  him  chatter  and  stamp 


The  Works  of  Walter  Savage  Landor     209 

for  his  diversion.  He  has  so  long  conversed  in 
imagination  with  the  most  illustrious  spirits  of  all 
ages,  that  there  is  a  plentiful  measure  of  contempt 
in  his  treatment  of  those  he  esteems  unworthy. 
His  lip  begins  to  curl  at  sight  of  a  king,  partly  be 
cause  he  seems  to  consider  men  of  that  employ 
ment  fools,  and  partly  because  he  thinks  them  no 
gentlemen.  For  Bourbons  he  has  a  particular 
and  vehement  contempt,  because  to  the  folly  of 
kingship  they  add  the  vileness  of  being  French 
men.  He  is  a  theoretic  republican  of  the  strain 
of  Milton,  Sydney,  and  Harrington,  and  would 
have  all  the  citizens  of  his  republic  far-descended 
gentlemen  and  scholars. 

It  is  not  wonderful  that  Landor  has  never  been 
a  popular  writer.  His  is  a  mind  to  be  quietly  ap 
preciated  rather  than  to  excite  an  enthusiastic  par 
tisanship.  That  part  of  his  works  which  applies 
immediately  to  the  present  is  the  least  valuable. 
The  better  and  larger  portion  is  so  purely  imagi 
native,  so  truly  ideal,  that  it  will  be  as  fresh  and 
true  a  hundred  or  a  thousand  years  hence  as  now. 
His  writings  have  seldom  drawn  any  notice  from 
the  reviews,  which  is  singular  only  when  we  con 
sider  that  he  has  chosen  to  converse  almost  ex 
clusively  with  the  past,  and  is,  therefore,  in  some 
sense,  a  contemporary  of  those  post-secular  peri 
odicals.  The  appearance  of  a  collected  edition 
of  his  works  seems  more  like  the  publication  of  a 
new  edition  of  Plato  than  of  an  author  who  has 
lived  through  the  most  stirring  period  of  modern 
history.  Not  that  he  does  not  speak  and  speak 


210  The  Round  Table 

strongly  of  living  men  and  recent  events,  but  at 
such  times  the  man  is  often  wholly,  or  at  least 
partially,  obscured  in  the  Englishman. 

We  should  be  quite  at  a  loss  to  give  adequate 
specimens  of  a  man  so  various.  As  we  stated  in 
the  outset,  we  shall  confine  ourselves  to  the 
"Hellenics,"  on  a  brief  consideration  of  which  we 
now  enter.  They  will  convince  any  careful  reader 
that  something  more  (we  do  not  say  higher  or 
finer)  goes  to  the  making  up  of  a  poet  than  is 
included  in  the  composition  of  the  most  eloquent 
and  forcible  of  prose-writers. 

Opulent  as  the  prose  of  Landor  is,  we  cannot 
but  be  conscious  of  something  like  poverty  in  his 
verse.  He  is  too  minutely  circumstantial  for  a 
poet,  and  that  tendency  of  his  mind  to  details, 
which  we  before  alluded  to,  stands  in  his  way. 
The  same  careful  exactness  in  particulars  which 
gives  finish  to  his  prose  and  represses  any  tendency 
to  redundance,  seems  to  oppress  his  verse  and  to 
deprive  it  of  flow.  He  is  a  poet  in  his  prose,  but 
in  his  poetry  he  is  almost  a  proser.  His  concep 
tions  are  in  the  fullest  sense  poetical,  but  he  stops 
just  on  the  hither  side  of  adequate  expression. 
He  comes  short  by  so  mere  a  hair's-breadth  that 
there  is  something  painful  in  it.  There  is  beauty 
of  a  certain  kind,  but  the  witching  grace  is  want 
ing. 

"And  painfully  the  soul  receives 
Sense  of  that  gone  which  it  had  never  mist, 
Of  somewhat  lost,  but  when  it  never  wist." 


The  Works  of  Walter  Savage  Landor     211 

In  verse  Landor  seems  like  a  person  express 
ing  himself  in  a  foreign  language.  He  may  at 
tain  to  perfect  accuracy  and  elegance,  but  the  na 
tive  ease  is  out  of  his  reach.  We  said  before  that 
his  power  lay  less  in  developing  a  continuous  train 
of  thought,  than  in  presenting  single  thoughts  in 
their  entire  fullness  of  portion.  But  in  poetry,  it 
is  necessary  that  each  poem  should  be  informed 
with  a  homogeneous  spirit,  which  now  represses 
the  thought,  now  forces  it  to  overflow,  and  every 
where  modulates  the  metre  and  the  cadence  by  an 
instinct  of  which  we  can  understand  the  opera 
tions,  though  we  may  be  unable  to  define  the  mode 
of  them.  Beside  this,  we  should  say  that  Landor 
possessed  a  choice  of  language,  and  is  not  pos 
sessed  by  that  irresistible  and  happy  necessity  of 
the  true  poet  toward  the  particular  word  whose 
place  no  other  can  be  made  to  fit.  His  nicety  in 
specialties  imprisons  him  for  the  time  in  each  par 
ticular  verse  or  passage,  and  the  poem  seems  not 
to  have  grown,  but  to  have  been  built  up  slowly, 
with  square,  single  bricks,  each  carefully  molded, 
pressed,  and  baked  beforehand.  Sometimes, 
where  a  single  thought  or  feeling  is  to  be  ex 
pressed,  he  appears  exactly  the  man  for  the  occa 
sion. 

We  must  not  be  supposed  to  deny  the  presence, 
in  Landor's  "Hellenics,"  of  those  fine  qualities 
which  we  admire  in  his  prose.  We  mean  that  the 
beauties  are  not  specially  those  of  poetry,  and  that 
they  gain  nothing  from  the  verse.  The  almost  in 
visible  nerves  of  the  most  retired  emotions  are 


212  The  Round  Table 

traced  with  rapid  and  familiar  accuracy,  rare 
shades  of  sentiment  and  character  are  touched 
with  a  delicacy  peculiar  to  Landor,  noble  thoughts 
are  presented  to  us,  and  metaphors  fresh  from  na 
ture.  But  we  find  no  quality  here  which  is  not 
in  his  prose.  The  "Hellenics"  seem  like  admir 
able  translations  of  original  poems.  It  would  be 
juster,  perhaps,  to  say  that  they  impress  us  as 
Greek  poetry  does.  We  appreciate  the  poet  more 
than  the  poetry,  in  which  the  Northern  mind  feels 
an  indefinable  lack. 

The  "Hellenics"  have  positive  merits,  but  they 
are  not  exclusively  those  of  poetry.  They  belong 
to  everything  which  Landor  has  written.  We 
should  mention,  as  especially  prominent,  entire 
clearness,  and  so  thorough  an  absorption  of  the  au 
thor  in  his  subject  that  he  does  not  cast  about  him 
for  something  to  say,  but  is  only  careful  of  what 
he  shall  reject.  He  does  not  tell  us  too  much, 
and  wound  our  self-esteem  by  always  taking  it 
for  granted  that  we  do  not  know  anything,  and 
can  not  imagine  anything. 

We  should  be  inclined  to  select  as  favorable 
specimens  of  his  poetry,  "Thrasymedes  and 
Eunoe"  "The  Hamadryad"  "Enallos  and  Cymo- 
dameia"  and  the  last  poem  of  the  "Hellenics,"  to 
which  no  title  is  prefixed.  Of  these  the  last  is 
most  characteristic  of  Landor  and  of  his  scholarly 
and  gentlemanlike  love  of  freedom;  but  the  one 
most  likely  to  be  generally  pleasing  is  the  "Hama 
dryad" 

In  this   brief   article   we   have   not   attempted 


The  Works  of  Walter  Savage  Landor     213 

anything  like  an  adequate  criticism  of  one  of 
the  most  peculiar  and  delightful  writers  in  the 
English  language.  We  have  only  stated  some 
of  the  sharper  impressions  of  him  which  remain  in 
our  memory,  after  an  acquaintance  of  many  years. 
We  feel  that  what  we  have  said  is  exceedingly  im 
perfect.  But  we  shall  be  satisfied  if  we  lead  any 
one  to  desire  that  better  knowledge  of  him  which 
his  works  alone  can  furnish.  To  give  an  idea  of  the 
character  of  the  man,  a  very  few  quotations  would 
suffice,  but  to  show  the  value  of  his  writings  we 
should  be  obliged  to  copy  nearly  all  of  them.  We 
are  sometimes  inclined  to  think  of  Wordsworth, 
that,  if  he  has  not  reduced  poetry  to  the  level  of 
commonplace,  he  has  at  least  glorified  commonplace 
by  elevating  it  into  the  diviner  sether  of  poetry;  and 
we  may  say  of  Landor  that  he  has  clothed  common- 
sense  with  the  singing-robes  of  imagination.  In 
this  respect  he  resembles  Goethe,  and  we  feel  that 
he  eminently  deserves  one  of  the  titles  of  the  great 
German — the  Wise,  for,  as  common-sense  dwell 
ing  in  the  ordinary  plane  of  life  becomes  experience 
and  prudence,  so,  looking  down  from  the  summits  of 
imagination,  she  is  heightened  into  inspiration  and 
wisdom. 


PALFREY'S  HISTORY  OF  NEW 
ENGLAND 


PALFREY'S  HISTORY  OF  NEW 
ENGLAND l 

THE  history  of  New  England  is  written  im- 
perishably  on  the  face  of  a  continent, 
and  in  characters  as  beneficent  as  they 
are  enduring.  In  the  Old  World  na 
tional  pride  feeds  itself  with  the  record  of  battles 
and  conquests ; — battles  which  proved  nothing  and 
settled  nothing;  conquests  which  shifted  a  boundary 
on  the  map,  and  put  one  ugly  head  instead  of  an 
other  on  the  coin  which  the  people  paid  to  the  tax- 
gatherer.  But  wherever  the  New-Englanderi 
travels  among  the  sturdy  commonwealths  which 
have  sprung  from  the  seed  of  the  Mayflower, 
churches,  schools,  colleges,  tell  him  where  the  men 
of  his  race  have  been,  or  their  influence  penetrated; 
and  an  intelligent  freedom  is  the  monument  of  con 
quests  whose  results  are  not  to  be  measured  in 
square  miles.  Next  to  the  fugitives  whom  Moses 
led  out  of  Egypt,  the  little  ship-load  of  outcasts 
who  landed  at  Plymouth  two  centuries  and  a  half 
ago  are  destined  to  influence  the  future  of  the 
world.  The  spiritual  thirst  of  mankind  has  for 
ages  been  quenched  at  Hebrew  fountains;  but  the 
embodiment  in  human  institutions  of  truths  uttered 
by  the  Son  of  Man  eighteen  centuries  ago  was  to 
be  mainly  the  work  of  Puritan  thought  and  Puri- 

i  History  of  New  England  during  the  Stuart  Dynasty.  By  JOHN 
GORHAM  PALFREY.  Vol.  III.  Boston:  Little,  Brown  &  Co. 
1864. 

217 


218  The  Round  Table 

tan  self-devotion.  Leave  New  England  out  in  the 
cold!  While  you  are  plotting  it,  she  sits  by  every 
fireside  in  the  land  where  there  is  piety,  culture,  and 
free  thought. 

Faith  in  God,  faith  in  man,  faith  in  work, — this 
is  the  short  formula  in  which  we  may  sum  up  the 
teaching  of  the  founders  of  New  England,  a  creed 
ample  enough  for  this  life  and  the  next.  If  their 
municipal  regulations  smack  somewhat  of  Judaism, 
yet  there  can  be  no  nobler  aim  or  more  practical 
wisdom  than  theirs;  for  it  w;as  to  make  the  law  of 
man  a  living  counterpart  of  the  law  of  God,  in  their 
highest  conception  of  it.  Were  they  too  earnest 
in  the  strife  to  save  their  souls  alive?  That  is  still 
the  problem  which  every  wise  and  brave  man  is  life 
long  in  solving.  If  the  Devil  take  a  less  hateful 
shape  to  us  than  to  our  fathers,  he  is  as  busy  with  us 
as  with  them;  and  if  we  cannot  find  it  in  our  hearts 
to  break  with  a  gentleman  of  so  much  worldly  wis 
dom,  who  gives  such  admirable  dinners,  and  whose 
manners  are  so  perfect,  so  much  the  worse  for  us. 

Looked  at  on  the  outside,  New  England  history 
is  dry  and  unpicturesque.  There  is  no  rustle  of 
silks,  no  waving  of  plumes,  no  clink  of  golden 
spurs.  Our  sympathies  are  not  awakened  by  the 
changeful  destinies,  the  rise  and  fall,  of  great  fam 
ilies,  whose  doom  was  in  their  blood.  Instead  of  all 
this,  we  have  the  homespun  fates  of  Cephas  and 
Prudence  repeated  in  an  infinite  series  of  peaceable 
sameness,  and  finding  space  enough  for  record  in 
the  family  Bible;  we  have  the  noise  of  axe  and  ham 
mer  and  saw,  an  apotheosis  of  dogged  work,  where, 


Palfrey's  History  of  New  England       219 

reversing  the  fairy-tale,  nothing  is  left  to  luck,  and, 
if  there  be  any  poetry,  it  is  something  that  cannot 
be  helped, — the  waste  of  the  water  over  the  dam. 
Extrinsically,  it  is  prosaic  and  plebeian;  intrinsic 
ally,  it  is  poetic  and  noble;  for  it  is,  perhaps,  the 
most  perfect  incarnation  of  an  idea  the  world  has 
ever  seen.  That  idea  was  not  to  found  a  democ 
racy,  nor  to  charter  the  city  of  New  Jerusalem  by 
an  act  of  the  General  Court,  as  gentlemen  seem  to 
think  whose  notions  of  history  and  human  nature 
rise  like  an  exhalation  from  the  good  things  at  a 
Pilgrim  Society  dinner.  Not  in  the  least.  They 
had  no  faith  in  the  Divine  institution  of  a  system 
which  gives  Teague,  because  he  can  dig,  as  much 
influence  as  Ralph,  because  he  can  think,  nor  in  per 
sonal  at  the  expense  of  general  freedom.  Their 
view  of  human  rights  was  not  so  limited  that  it 
could  not  take  in  human  relations  and  duties  also. 
They  would  have  been  likely  to  answer  the  claim,  "I 
am  as  good  as  anybody,"  by  a  quiet,  "Yes,  for  some 
things,  but  not  for  others;  as  good,  doubtless,  in 
your  place,  where  all  things  are  good."  What  the 
early  settlers  of  Massachusetts  did  intend,  and  what 
they  accomplished,  was  the  founding  here  of  a  new 
England,  and  a  better  one,  where  the  political 
superstitions  and  abuses  of  the  old  should  never 
have  leave  to  take  root.  So  much,  we  may  say, 
they  deliberately  intended.  No  nobles,  either  lay 
or  cleric,  no  great  landed  estates,  and  no  universal 
ignorance  as  the  seed-plot  of  vice  and  unreason; 
but  an  elective  magistracy  and  clergy,  land  for  all 
who  would  till  it,  and  reading  and  writing,  will  ye 


220  The  Round  Table 

nill  ye,  instead.  Here  at  last,  it  would  seem,  sim 
ple  manhood  is  to  have  a  chance  to  play  his  stake 
against  Fortune  with  honest  dice,  uncogged  by 
those  three  hoary  sharpers,  Prerogative,  Patrician- 
ism,  and  Priestcraft.  Whoever  has  looked  into  the 
pamphlets  published  in  England  during  the  Great 
Rebellion  cannot  but  have  been  struck  by  the  fact, 
that  the  principles  and  practice  of  the  Puritan  col 
ony  had  begun  to  react  with  considerable  force  on 
the  mother  country;  and  the  policy  of  the  retro 
grade  party  there,  after  the  Restoration,  in  its  deal 
ings  with  New  England,  finds  a  curious  parallel  as 
to  its  motives  (time  will  show  whether  as  to  its  re 
sults)  in  the  conduct  of  the  same  party  towards 
America  during  the  last  four  years.2  This  influ 
ence  and  this  fear  alike  bear  witness  to  the  energy 
of  the  principles  at  work  here. 

We  have  said  that  the  details  of  New  England 
history  were  essentially  dry  and  unpoetic.  Every 
thing  is  near,  authentic,  and  petty.  There  is  no 
mist  of  distance  to  soften  outlines,  no  mirage  of 
tradition  to  give  characters  and  events  an  imagi 
native  loom.  So  much  downright  work  was  perhaps 
never  wrought  on  the  earth's  surface  in  the  same 
space  of  time  as  during  the  first  forty  years  after 
the  settlement.  But  mere  w-ork  is  unpicturesque, 
and  void  of  sentiment.  Irving  instinctively  and 
admirably  illustrated  in  his  "Knickerbocker"  the 
humorous  element  which  lies  in  this  nearness  of 
view,  this  clear,  prosaic  daylight  of  modernness, 
and  this  poverty  of  stage-properties,  which  makes 

2  The  years  of  the  Civil  War.— ED. 


Palfrey's  History  of  New  England      221 

the  actors  and  the  deeds  they  were  concerned  in 
seem  ludicrously  small  when  contrasted  with  the 
semi-mythic  grandeur  in  which  we  have  clothed 
them,  looking  backward  from  the  crowned  result, 
and  fancying  a  cause  as  majestic  as  our  conception 
of  the  effect.  There  was,  indeed,  one  poetic  side 
to  the  existence  otherwise  so  narrow  and  practical; 
and  to  have  conceived  this,  however  partially,  is  the 
one  original  and  American  thing  in  Cooper.  This 
diviner  glimpse  illumines  the  lives  of  our  Daniel 
Boones,  the  man  of  civilization  and  old-world 
ideas  confronted  with  our  forest  solitudes, — con 
fronted,  too,  for  the  first  time,  with  his  real  self, 
and  so  led  gradually  to  disentangle  the  original 
substance  of  his  manhood  from  the  artificial  re 
sults  of  culture.  Here  was  our  new  Adam  of  the 
wilderness,  forced  to  name  anew,  not  the  visible 
creation  of  God,  but  the  invisible  creation  of  man, 
in  those  forms  that  lie  at  the  base  of  social  institu 
tions,  so  insensibly  molding  personal  character  and 
controlling  individual  action.  Here  is  the  pro 
tagonist  of  our  New  World  epic,  a  figure  as  poetic 
as  that  of  Achilles,  as  ideally  representative  as  that 
of  Don  Quixote,  as  romantic  in  its  relation  to  our 
homespun  and  plebeian  mythus  as  Arthur  in  his 
to  the  mailed  and  plumed  cycle  of  chivalry.  We 
do  not  mean,  of  course,  that  Cooper's  "Leather- 
stocking"  is  all  this  or  anything  like  it,  but  that  the 
character  typified  in  him  is  ideally  and  potentially 
all  this  and  more. 

But  whatever  was  poetical  in  the  lives  of  the 
early  New-Englanders  had  something  shy,  if  not 


222  The  Round  Table 

sombre,  about  it.  If  their  natures  flowered,  it 
was  out  of  sight,  like  the  fern.  It  was  in  the  prac 
tical  that  they  showed  their  true  quality,  as  Eng 
lishmen  are  wont.  It  has  been  the  fashion  lately 
with  a  few  feeble-minded  persons  to  undervalue 
the  New-England  Puritans,  as  if  they  were  noth 
ing  more  than  gloomy  and  narrow-minded  fanatics. 
But  all  the  charges  brought  against  these  large- 
minded  and  far-seeing  men  are  precisely  those 
which  a  really  able  fanatic,  Joseph  de  Maistre,  lays 
at  the  door  of  Protestantism.  Neither  a  knowl 
edge  of  human  nature  nor  of  history  justifies  us  in 
confounding,  as  is  commonly  done,  the  Puritans  of 
Old  and  New  England,  or  the  English  Puritans  of 
the  third  with  those  of  the  fifth  decade  of  the  seven 
teenth  century.  Fanaticism,  or,  to  call  it  by  its 
milder  name,  enthusiasm,  is  only  powerful  and  ac 
tive  so  long  as  it  is  aggressive.  Establish  it  firmly 
in  power,  and  it  becomes  conservatism,  whether  it 
will  or  no.  A  sceptre  once  put  in  the  hand,  the 
grip  is  instinctive;  and  he  who  is  firmly  seated  in 
authority  soon  learns  to  think  security,  and  not 
progress,  the  highest  lesson  of  statecraft.  From 
the  summit  of  power  men  no  longer  turn  their  eyes 
upward  only,  but  begin  to  look  about  them.  As 
piration  sees  only  one  side  of  every  question;  pos 
session,  many.  And  the  English  Puritans,  after 
their  revolution  was  accomplished,  stood  in  even 
a  more  precarious  position  than  most  successful 
assailants  of  the  prerogative  of  whatever  is  to  con 
tinue  in  being.  They  had  carried  a  political  end  by 
means  of  a  religious  revival.  The  fulcrum  on 


Palfrey's  History  of  New  England       223 

which  they  rested  their  lever  to  overturn  the  exist 
ing  order  of  things  (as  history  always  placidly  calls 
the  particular  form  of  border  for  the  time  being) 
was  in  the  soul  of  man.  They  could  not  renew  the 
fiery  gush  of  enthusiasm,  when  once  the  molten 
metal  had  begun  to  stiffen  in  the  mold  of  policy 
and  precedent.  The  religious  element  of  Puritan 
ism  became  insensibly  merged  in  the  political ;  and, 
its  one  great  man  taken  away,  it  died,  as  passions 
have  done  before,  of  possession.  It  was  one  thing 
to  shout  with  Cromwell  before  the  battle  of  Dun- 
bar,  "Now,  Lord,  arise,  and  let  thine  enemies  be 
scattered!"  and  to  snuffle,  "Rise,  Lord,  and  keep  us 
safe  in  our  benefices,  our  sequestered  estates,  and 
our  five  per  cent!"  Puritanism  meant  something 
when  Captain  Hodgson,  riding  out  to  battle 
through  the  morning  mist,  turns  over  the  command 
of  his  troop  to  a  lieutenant,  and  stays  to  hear  the 
prayer  of  a  cornet,  there  was  "so  much  of  God  in 
it."  Become  traditional,  repeating  the  phrase 
without  the  spirit,  reading  the  present  backward  as 
if  it  were  written  in  Hebrew,  translating  Jehovah 
by  "I  was"  instead  of  "I  am," — it  was  no  more  like 
its  former  self  than  the  hollow  drum  made  of 
Zisca's  skin  was  like  the  grim  captain  whose  soul 
it  had  once  contained.  Yet  the  change  was  inevi 
table,  for  it  is  not  safe  to  confound  the  things  of 
Caesar  with  the  things  of  God.  Some  honest  re 
publicans,  like  Ludlow,  were  never  able  to  com 
prehend  the  chilling  contrast  between  the  ideal  aim 
and  the  material  fulfilment,  and  looked  askance  on 
the  strenuous  reign  of  Oliver, — that  rugged  boulder 


224  The  Round  Table 

of  primitive  manhood  lying  lonely  there  on  the  dead 
level  of  the  century, — as  if  some  crooked  changeling 
had  been  laid  in  the  cradle  instead  of  the  fair  babe 
of  a  Commonwealth  they  had  dreamed.  Truly 
there  is  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men,  but  there  is  no 
gulf -stream  setting  forever  in  one  direction;  and 
those  waves  of  enthusiasm  on  whose  crumbling 
crests  we  sometimes  see  nations  lifted  for  a  gleam 
ing  moment  are  wont  to  have  a  gloomy  trough  be 
fore  and  behind. 

But  the  founders  of  New  England,  though  they 
must  have  sympathized  vividly  with  the  struggles 
and  triumphs  of  their  brethren  in  the  mother  coun 
try,  were  never  subjected  to  the  same  trials  and 
temptations,  never  hampered  with  the  same  lumber 
of  usages  and  tradition.  They  were  not  driven  to 
win  power  by  doubtful  or  desperate  ways,  nor  to 
maintain  it  by  any  compromises  of  the  ends  which 
make  it  worth  having.  From  the  outset  they  were 
builders,  without  need  of  first  pulling  down, 
whether  to  make  room  or  provide  material.  For 
thirty  years  after  the  colonization  of  the  Bay,  they 
had  absolute  power  to  mold  as  they  would  the 
character  of  their  adolescent  commonwealth.  Dur 
ing  this  time  a  whole  generation  would  have  grown 
to  manhood  who  knew  the  Old  World  only  by  re 
port,  in  whose  habitual  thought  kings,  nobles,  and 
bishops  would  be  as  far  away  from  all  present  and 
practical  concern  as  the  figures  in  a  fairy  tale,  and 
all  whose  memories  and  associations,  all  their  un 
conscious  training  by  eye  and  ear,  were  New  Eng 
lish  wholly.  Nor  were  the  men  whose  influence 


Palfrey's  History  of  New  England       225 

was  greatest  in  shaping  the  framework  and  the 
policy  of  the  Colony,  in  any  true  sense  of  the  word, 
fanatics.  Enthusiasts,  perhaps,  they  were,  but 
with  them  the  fermentation  had  never  gone  further 
than  the  ripeness  of  the  vinous  stage.  Disappoint 
ment  had  never  made  it  acetous,  nor  had  it  ever 
putrefied  into  the  turbid  zeal  of  Fifth-Monarchism 
and  sectarian  whimsy.  There  is  no  better  ballast 
for  keeping  the  mind  steady  on  its  keel,  and  saving 
it  from  all  risk  of  crankiness,  than  business.  And 
they  were  business  men,  men  of  facts  and  figures 
no  less  than  of  religious  earnestness.  The  sum  of 
two  hundred  thousand  pounds  had  been  invested 
in  their  undertaking, — a  sum,  for  that  time,  truly 
enormous  as  the  result  of  private  combination  for 
a  doubtful  experiment.  That  their  enterprise 
might  succeed,  they  must  show  a  balance  on  the 
right  side  of  the  counting-house  ledger,  as  well  as 
in  their  private  accounts  with  their  own  souls.  The 
liberty  of  praying  when  and  how  they  would,  must 
be  balanced  with  an  ability  of  paying  when  and 
as  they  ought.  Nor  is  the  resulting  fact  in  this 
case  at  variance  with  the  a  priori  theory.  They 
succeeded  in  making  their  thought  the  life  and  soul 
of  a  body  politic,  still  powerful,  still  benignly  op 
erative,  after  two  centuries;  a  thing  which  no  mere 
fanatic  ever  did  or  ever  will  accomplish.  Sober, 
earnest,  and  thoughtful  men,  it  was  no  Utopia,  no 
New  Atlantis,  no  realization  of  a  splendid  dream, 
which  they  had  at  heart,  but  the  establishment  of 
the  divine  principle  of  Authority  on  the  common 
interest  and  the  common  consent;  the  making,  by 


226  The  Round  Table 

a  contribution  from  the  free-will  of  all,  a  power 
which  should  curb  and  guide  the  free-will  of  each 
for  the  general  good.  If  they  Were  stern  in  their 
dealings  with  sectaries,  it  should  be  remembered 
that  the  Colony  was  in  fact  the  private  property  of 
the  Massachusetts  Company,  that  unity  was  es 
sential  to  its  success,  and  that  John  of  Leyden  had 
taught  them  how  unendurable  by  the  nostrils  of 
honest  men  is  the  corruption  of  the  right  of  private 
judgment  in  the  evil  and  selfish  hearts  of  men  when 
no  thorough  mental  training  has  developed  the  un 
derstanding  and  given  the  judgment  its  needful 
means  of  comparison  and  correction.  They  knew 
that  liberty  in  the  hands  of  feeble-minded  and  un 
reasoning  persons  (and  all  the  worse  if  they  are 
honest)  means  nothing  more  than  the  supremacy  of 
their  particular  form  of  imbecility;  means  nothing 
less,  therefore,  than  downright  chaos,  a  Bedlam- 
chaos  of  monomaniacs  and  bores.  What  was  to  be 
done  with  men  and  women,  who  bore  conclusive 
witness  to  the  fall  of  man  by  insisting  on  walking 
up  the  broad-aisle  of  the  meeting-house  in  a  costume 
which  that  event  had  put  forever  out  of  fashion? 
About  their  treatment  of  witches,  too,  there  has 
been  a  great  deal  of  ignorant  babble.  Puritanism 
had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  it.  They  acted 
under  a  delusion,  which,  with  an  exception  here  and 
there  (and  those  mainly  medieal  men,  like  Wierus 
and  Webster),  darkened  the  understanding  of  all 
Christendom.  Dr.  Henry  More  was  no  Puritan; 
and  his  letter  to  Glanvil,  prefixed  to  the  third  edi 
tion  of  the  "Sadducismus  Triumphatus,"  was  writ- 


Palfrey's  History  of  New  England      227 

ten  in  1678,  only  fourteen  years  before  the  trials 
at  Salem.  Bekker's  "Bezauberte  Welt"  was  pub 
lished  in  1693;  and  in  the  Preface  he  speaks  of  the 
difficulty  of  overcoming  "the  prejudices  in  which 
not  only  ordinary  men,  but  the  learned  also,  are  ob 
stinate."  In  Hathaway's  case,  1702,  Chief  Justice 
Holt,  in  charging  the  jury,  expresses  no  disbelief 
in  the  possibility  of  witchcraft,  and  the  indictment 
implies  its  existence.  Indeed,  the  natural  reaction 
from  the  Salem  mania  of  1692  put  an  end  to  belief 
in  devilish  compacts  and  demoniac  possessions 
sooner  in  New  England  than  elsewhere.  The  last 
we  hear  of  it  there  is  in  1720,  when  Rev.  Mr.  Turell 
of  Medford  detected  and  exposed  an  attempted 
cheat  by  two  girls.  Even  in  1692,  it  was  the  foolish 
breath  of  Cotton  Mather  and  others  of  the  clergy 
that  blew  the  dying  embers  of  this  ghastly  supersti 
tion  into  a  flame ;  and  they  were  actuated  partly  by 
a  desire  to  bring  about  a  religious  revival,  which 
might  stay  for  a  while  the  hastening  lapse  of  their 
own  authority,  and  still  more  by  that  credulous 
scepticism;  of  feeble-minded  piety  which  dreads  the 
cutting  away  of  an  orthodox  misbelief,  as  if  the 
life-blood  of  faith  would  follow,  and  would  keep 
even  a  stumbling-block  in  the  way  of  salvation,  if 
only  enough  generations  had  tripped  over  it  to  make 
it  venerable.  The  witches  were  condemned  on 
precisely  the  same  grounds  that  in  our  day  led  to 
the  condemnation  of  "Essays  and  Reviews." 

But  Puritanism  was  already  in  the  decline  when 
such  things  were  possible.  What  had  been  a  won 
drous  and  intimate  experience  of  the  soul,  a  flash 


228  The  Round  Table 

into  the  very  crypt  and  basis  of  man's  nature  from 
the  fire  of  trial,  had  become  ritual  and  tradition. 
In  prosperous  times  the  faith  of  one  generation  be 
comes  the  formality  of  the  next.  "The  necessity 
of  a  reformation,"  set  forth  by  order  of  the  Synod 
which  met  at  Cambridge  in  1679,  though  no  doubt 
overstating  the  case,  shows  how  much  even  at  that 
time  the  ancient  strictness  had  been  loosened. 
The  country  had  grown  rich,  its  commerce  was 
large,  and  wealth  did  its  natural  work  in  making 
life  softer  and  more  worldly,  commerce  in  depro- 
vincializing  the  minds  of  those  engaged  in  it.  But 
Puritanism  had  already  done  its  duty.  As  there 
are  certain  creatures  whose  whole  being  seems 
occupied  with  an  egg-laying  errand  they  are  sent 
upon,  incarnate  ovipositors,  their  bodies  but  bags 
to  hold  this  precious  deposit,  their  legs  of  use  only 
to  carry  them  where  they  may  safeliest  be  rid  of 
it,  so  sometimes  a  generation  seems  to  have  no 
other  end  than  the  conception  and  ripening  of  cer 
tain  germs.  Its  blind  stirrings,  its  apparently 
aimless  seeking  hither  and  thither,  are  but  the  driv 
ing  of  an  instinct  to  be  done  with  its  parturient 
function  toward  these  principles  of  future  life  and 
power.  Puritanism,  believing  itself  quick  with 
the  seed  of  religious  liberty,  laid,  without  knowing 
it,  the  egg  of  democracy.  The  English  Puritans 
pulled  down  church  and  state  to  rebuild  Zion  on 
the  ruins,  and  all  the  while  it  was  not  Zion,  but 
America,  they  were  building.  But  if  their  millen 
nium  went  by,  like  the  rest,  and  left  men  still 
human, — if  they,  like  so  many  saints  and  martyrs 


Palfrey's  History  of  New  England      229 

before  them,  listened  in  vain  for  the  sound  of  that 
trumpet  which  was  to  summon  all  souls  to  a  resur 
rection  from  the  body  of  this  death  which  men  call 
life, — it  is  not  for  us,  at  least,  to  forget  the  heavy 
debt  we  owe  them,.  It  was  the  drums  of  Naseby 
and  Dunbar  that  gathered  the  minute-men  on 
Lexington  Common ;  it  was  the  red  dint  of  the  axe 
on  Charles's  block  that  marked  One  in  our  era. 
The  Puritans  had  their  faults.  They  were  nar 
row,  ungenial;  they  could  not  understand  the  text, 
"I  have  piped  to  you  and  ye  have  not  danced," 
nor  conceive  that  saving  one's  soul  should  be  the 
cheerfullest,  and  not  the  dreariest  of  businesses. 
Their  preachers  had  a  way,  like  the  painful  Mr. 
Perkins,  of  pronouncing  the  word  damn  with  such 
an  emphasis  as  left  a  doleful  echo  in  their  auditors' 
ears  a  good  while  after.  And  it  was  natural  that 
men  who  had  led  or  accompanied  the  exodus  from 
existing  forms  and  associations  into  the  doubtful 
wilderness  that  led  to  the  promised  land,  should 
find  more  to  their  purpose  in  the  Old  Testament 
than  in  the  New.  As  respects  the  New  England 
settlers,  however  visionary  some  of  their  religious 
tenets  may  have  been,  their  political  ideas  savored 
of  the  realty,  and  it  was  no  Nephelococcygia  of 
which  they  drew  the  plan,  but  of  a  commonwealth 
whose  foundation  was  to  rest  on  solid  and  familiar 
earth.  If  what  they  did  was  done  in  a  corner,  the 
results  of  it  were  to  be  felt  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth;  and  the  figure  of  Winthrop  should  be  as 
venerable  in  history  as  that  of  Romulus  is  barbar 
ously  grand  in  legend. 


230  The  Bound  Table 

We  are  inclined  to  think  that  many  of  our 
national  characteristics,  which  are  sometimes  at 
tributed  to  climate  and  sometimes  to  institutions, 
are  traceable  to  the  influences  of  Puritan  descent. 
We  are  apt  to  forget  how  very  large  a  proportion 
of  our  population  is  descended  from  emigrants 
who  came  over  before  1660.  Those  emigrants 
were  in  great  part  representatives  of  that  element 
of  English  character  which  was  most  susceptible 
of  religious  impressions;  in  other  words,  the  most 
earnest  and  imaginative.  Our  people  still  differ 
from  their  English  cousins  (as  they  are  fond  of 
calling  themselves  when  they  are  afraid  we  may 
do  them  a  mischief)  in  a  certain  capacity  for  en 
thusiasm,  a  devotion  to  abstract  principle,  an  open 
ness  to  ideas,  a  greater  aptness  for  intuitions  than 
for  the  slow  processes  of  the  syllogism,  and,  as 
derivative  from  this,  in  minds  of  looser  texture,  a 
light-armed,  skirmishing  habit  of  thought,  and  a 
positive  preference  of  the  birds  in  the  bush, — an 
excellent  quality  of  character  before  you  have 
your  bird  in  the  hand. 

There  have  been  two  great  distributing  centres  of 
the  English  race  on  this  continent,  Massachusetts 
and  Virginia.  Each  has  impressed  the  character  of 
its  early  legislators  on  the  swarms  it  has  sent  forth. 
Their  ideas  are  in  some  fundamental  respects  the 
opposites  of  each  other,  and  we  can  only  account 
for  it  by  an  antagonism  of  thought  beginning  with 
the  early  framers  of  their  respective  institutions. 
New  England  abolishes  caste;  in  Virginia  they 
still  talk  of  "quality  folks."  But  it  was  in  mak- 


Palfrey's  History  of  New  England      231 

ing  education  not  only  common  to  all,  but  in  some 
sense  compulsory  on  all,  that  the  destiny  of  the 
free  republics  of  America  was  practically  settled. 
Every  man  was  to  be  trained,  not  only  to  the  use 
of  arms,  but  of  his  wits  also;  and  it  is  these  which 
alone  make  the  others  effective  weapons  for  the 
maintenance  of  freedom.  You  may  disarm  the 
hands,  but  not  the  brains,  of  a  people,  and  to 
know  what  should  be  defended  is  the  first  condi 
tion  of  successful  defense.  Simple  as  it  seems,  it 
was  a  great  discovery  that  the  key  of  knowledge 
could  turn  both  ways,  that  it  could  open,  as  well 
as  lock,  the  door  of  power  to  the  many.  The  only 
things  a  New  Englander  was  ever  locked  out  of 
were  the  jails.  It  is  quite  true  that  our  Republic 
is  the  heir  of  the  English  Commonwealth;  but  as 
we  trace  events  backward  to  their  causes,  we  shall 
find  it  true  also,  that  what  made  our  Revolution 
a  foregone  conclusion  was  that  act  of  the  General 
Court,  passed  in  May,  1647,  which  established  the 
system  of  common  schools.  "To  the  end  that 
learning  may  not  be  buried  in  the  graves  of  our 
forefathers  in  Church  and  Commonwealth,  the 
Lord  assisting  our  endeavors,  it  is  therefore 
ordered  by  this  Court  and  authority  thereof,  that 
every  township  in  this  jurisdiction,  after  the  Lord 
hath  increased  them  to  fifty  householders,  shall 
then  forthwith  appoint  one  within  their  own  towns 
to  teach  all  such  children  as  shall  resort  to  him  to 
write  and  read." 

Passing   through    some   Massachusetts    village, 
perhaps  at  a  distance  from  any  house,  it  may  be 


232  The  Round  Table 

in  the  midst  of  a  piece  of  woods  where  four  roads 
meet,  one  may  sometimes  even  yet  see  a  small, 
square,  one-story  building,  whose  use  would  not 
be  long  doubtful.  It  is  summer,  and  the  flicker 
ing  shadows  of  forest-leaves  dapple  the  roof  of  the 
little  porch,  whose  door  stands  wide,  and  shows, 
hanging  on  either  hand,  rows  of  straw  hats  and 
bonnets,  that  look  as  if  they  had  done  good  service. 
As  you  pass  the  open  windows,  you  hear  whole 
platoons  of  high-pitched  voices  discharging  words 
of  two  or  three  syllables  with  wonderful  precision 
and  unanimity.  Then  there  is  a  pause,  and  the 
voice  of  the  officer  in  command  is  heard  reproving 
some  raw  recruit  whose  vocal  musket  hung  fire. 
Then  the  drill  of  the  small  infantry  begins  anew, 
but  pauses  again  because  some  urchin — who  agrees 
w^th  Voltaire  that  the  superfluous  is  a  very  neces 
sary  thing — insists  on  spelling  "subtraction"  with 
an  s  too  much. 

If  you  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  born  and 
bred  in  the  Bay  State,  your  mind  is  thronged  with 
half-sad,  half-humorous  recollections.  The  a-b 
abs  of  little  voices  long  since  hushed  in  the  mold, 
or  ringing  now  in  the  pulpit,  at  the  bar,  or  in  the 
Senate-chamber,  come  back  to  the  ear  of  memory. 
You  remember  the  high  stool  on  which  culprits 
used  to  be  elevated  with  the  tall  paper  fool's-cap 
on  their  heads,  blushing  to  the  ears ;  and  you  think 
with  wonder  how  you  have  seen  them  since  as  men 
climbing  the  world's  penance-stools  of  ambition 
without  a  blush,  and  gladly  giving  everything  for 
life's  caps  and  bells.  And  you  have  pleasanter 


Palfrey's  History  of  New  England       233 

memories  of  going  after  pond-lilies,  of  angling  for 
horn-pouts, — that  queer  bat  among  the  fishes, — of 
nutting,  of  walking  over  the  creaking  snow-crust 
in  winter,  when  the  warm  breath  of  every  house 
hold  was  curling  up  silently  in  the  keen  blue  air. 
You  wonder  if  life  has  any  rewards  more  solid 
and  permanent  than  the  Spanish  dollar  that  was 
hung  around  your  neck  to  be  restored  again  next 
day,  and  conclude  sadly  that  it  was  but  too  true  a 
prophecy  and  emblem  of  all  worldly  success.  But 
your  moralizing  is  broken  short  off  by  a  rattle  of 
feet  and  the  pouring  forth  of  the  whole  swarm, — 
the  boys  dancing  and  shouting, — the  mere  effer 
vescence  of  the  fixed  air  of  youth  and  animal  spirits 
uncorked, — the  sedater  girls  in  confidential  twos 
and  threes  decanting  secrets  out  of  the  mouth  of 
one  cape-bonnet  into  that  of  another.  Times 
have  changed  since  the  jackets  and  trousers  used 
to  draw  up  on  one  side  of  the  road,  and  the  petti 
coats  on  the  other,  to  salute  with  bow  and  courtesy 
the  white  neckcloth  of  the  parson  or  the  squire,  if 
it  chanced  to  pass  during  intermission. 

Now  this  little  building,  and  others  like  it,  were 
an  original  kind  of  fortification  invented  by  the 
founders  of  New  England.  They  are  the  mar- 
tello-towers  that  protect  our  coast.  This  was  the 
great  discovery  of  our  Puritan  forefathers. 
They  were  the  first  lawgivers  who  saw  clearly  and 
enforced  practically  the  simple  moral  and  political 
truth,  that  knowledge  was  not  an  alms  to  be  de 
pendent  on  the  chance  charity  of  private  men  or 
the  precarious  pittance  of  a  trust-fund,  but  a 


C 


234  The  Round  Table 

sacred  debt  which  the  commonwealth  owed  to 
every  one  of  her  children.  The  opening  of  the 
first  grammar-school  was  the  opening  of  the  first 
trench  against  monopoly  in  church  and  state;  the 
first  row  of  trammels  and  pothooks  which  the 
little  Shear jashubs  and  Elkanahs  blotted  and 
blubbered  across  their  copy-books,  was  the  pre 
amble  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  The 
men  who  gave  every  man  the  chance  to  become  a 
landholder,  who  made  the  transfer  of  land  easy, 
and  put  knowledge  within  the  reach  of  all,  have 
been  called  narrow-minded,  because  they  were 
intolerant.  But  intolerant  of  what?  Of  what 
they  believed  to  be  dangerous  nonsense,  which,  if 
left  free,  would  destroy  the  last  hope  of  civil  and 
religious  freedom.  They  had  not  come  here  that 
every  man  might  do  that  which  seemed  good  in 
his  own  eyes,  but  in  the  sight  of  God.  Tolera 
tion,  moreover,  is  something  which  is  won,  not 
granted.  It  is  the  equilibrium  of  neutralized 
forces.  The  Puritans  had  no  notion  of  tolerating 
mischief.  They  looked  upon  their  little  common 
wealth  as  upon  their  own  private  estate  and  home 
stead,  as  they  had  a  right  to  do,  and  would  no 
more  allow  the  Devil's  religion  of  unreason  to  be 
preached  therein,  than  we  should  permit  a  prize 
fight  in  our  gardens.  They  were  narrow ;  in  other 
words,  they  had  an  edge  to  them,  as  men  that  serve 
in  great  emergencies  must;  for  a  Gordian  knot  is 
settled  sooner  with  a  sword  than  a  beetle.  Noth 
ing  can  be  better  than  Dr.  Palfrey's  treatment  of 
this  question  in  the  cases  of  Mr.  Williams  and 


Palfrey's  History  of  New  England      235 

Mrs.  Hutchinson.  It  is  perfectly  fair,  and  yet 
immitigable,  as  common-sense  always  is. 

Having  already  had  occasion  to  speak  of  Dr. 
Palfrey  in  our  journal,3  we  have  here  done  little 
more  than  epitomize  the  thoughts  and  conclusions 
to  which  we  have  been  led,  or  in  which  we  have 
been  confirmed,  by  the  three  volumes  already  pub 
lished.  There  are  many  passages  which  we  should 
have  been  glad  to  quote;  but  it  is  to  the  praise  of 
his  work  that  its  merit  lies  more  in  its  tone  of 
thought  and  its  weight  of  opinion,  than  in  pictorial 
effects.  Brilliancy  is  cheap,  but  trustworthiness 
of  thought,  and  evenness  of  judgment,  are  not  to 
be  had  at  every  booth. 

Dr.  Palfrey  combines  in  the  temper  of  his  mind 
and  the  variety  of  his  experience  some  quite 
peculiar  qualifications  for  the  task  he  has  under 
taken.  A  man  of  singular  honesty  of  purpose 
and  conscientiousness  of  action,  a  thoroughly 
trained  theologian,  he  ripened  and  enlarged  the 
somewhat  partial  knowledge  of  mankind  and  their 
motives  which  falls  to  the  lot  of  a  clergyman  by 
the  experience  of  active  politics  and  the  train 
ing  of  practical  statesmanship.  Needing  office 
neither  as  an  addition  of  emolument  nor  of  dig 
nity,  his  interest  in  politics  was  the  result  of  moral 
convictions,  and  not  of  personal  ambition.  The 
loss  of  his  seat  in  Congress,  while  it  was  none  to 
himself,  was  an  irreparable  one  for  Massachusetts, 
to  which  his  integrity,  his  learning,  and  his  elo 
quence  were  at  once  a  service  and  an  honor.  In 

s  The  North  American  Review. — ED. 


236  The  Round  Table 

the  maturity  of  his  powers,  he  devoted  himself  to 
the  composition  of  the  History  which  he  has  now 
brought  to  the  end  of  its  third  volume,  and  to  the 
beginning  of  a  new  period.  It  is  little  to  say  that 
his  work  is  the  only  one  of  its  kind.  He  has  done 
it  so  well,  that  it  is  likely  to  remain  so.  With 
none  of  that  glitter  of  style  and  epigrammatic 
point  of  expression  which  please  mpre  than  they 
enlighten,  and  tickle  when  they  should  instruct, 
there  is  a  gravity  and  precision  of  thought,  a  sober 
dignity  of  expression,  an  equanimity  of  judgment, 
and  a  clear  apprehension  of  characters  and  events, 
which  give  us  the  very  truth  of  things  as  they  are, 
and  not  as  either  he  or  his  reader  might  wish  them 
to  be.  Moreover,  in  spite  of  a  certain  external 
incongruity,  incidental  to  the  nature  of  the  sub 
ject,  which  obliges  him  to  go  from  one  Colony  to 
another,  but  which  is  more  apparent  than  real, 
there  is  an  essential  unity  of  treatment,  such  as 
would  be  possible  only  for  one  who,  knowing  the 
facts  thoroughly,  had  weighed  and  compared  them 
well,  and  had  thus  been  able  to  arrive  at  that  neu 
tral  point  of  criticism  which  harmonizes  by  com 
bining  them  all. 

Here,  it  seems  to  us,  lies  the  originality  of  Dr. 
Palfrey's  work, — in  this  congruity  of  the  con 
trolling  idea  with  the  admitted  event,  without  vio 
lence  to  either.  The  historian  has  his  theory  and 
his  facts,  and  the  only  way  in  which  he  can  recon 
cile  them  with  each  other  is  by  bearing  constantly 
in  mind  the  human  nature  of  the  actors.  In  this 
instance  there  is  no  temptation  to  make  a  hero, 


Palfrey's  History  of  New  England      237 

who  shall  sum  up  in  his  own  individuality  and 
carry  forward  by  his  own  will  that  purpose  of 
which  we  seem  to  catch  such  bewildering  glances 
in  history,  which  reveals  itself  more  clearly  and 
constantly,  perhaps,  in  the  annals  of  New  Eng 
land  than  elsewhere,  and  which  yet,  at  best,  is 
but  tentative,  doubtful  of  itself,  turned  this  way 
and  that  by  chance,  made  up  of  instinct,  and  modi 
fied  by  circumstance  quite  as  much  as  it  is  directed 
by  deliberate  forethought.  Such  a  purpose,  or 
natural  craving,  or  result  of  temporary  influences, 
may  be  misguided  by  a  powerful  character  to  his 
own  ends,  or,  if  he  be  strongly  in  sympathy  with 
it,  may  be  hastened  toward  its  own  fulfilment;  but 
there  is  no  such  heroic  element  in  our  drama,  and 
what  is  remarkable  is,  that,  under  whatever  gov 
ernment,  democracy  grew  with  the  growth  of  the 
New  England  Colonies,  and  was  at  last  potent 
enough  to  wrench  them,  and  the  better  part  of 
the  continent  with  them,  from  the  mother  country. 
It  is  true  that  Jefferson  embodied  in  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  the  speculative  theories  he 
had  learned  in  France,  but  the  impulse  to  separa 
tion  came  from!  Massachusetts;  and  the  theories 
had  long  since  been  embodied  there  in  the  practice 
of  the  people,  if  they  had  never  been  formulated 
in  distinct  propositions. 

We  do  not  mean  that  Dr.  Palfrey,  like  a  great 
many  declaimers  about  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  looks 
upon  them  all  as  men  of  grand  conceptions  and 
superhuman  foresight.  An  entire  ship's  company 
of  Columbuses  is  what  the  world  never  saw.  Nor 


238  The  Bound  Table 

has  he  formed  any  theory  and  fitted  his  facts  to 
it,  as  a  man  in  a  hurry  is  apt  to  cram  his  traveling- 
bag,  with  a  total  disregard  of  shape  or  texture. 
But  he  has  found  that  the  facts  will  only  fit  com 
fortably  together  on  a  single  plan,  namely,  that 
the  fathers  did  have  a  conception  (which  those 
will  call  grand  who  regard  simplicity  as  a  neces 
sary  element  of  grandeur)  of  founding  here  a 
commonwealth  on  those  two  eternal  bases  of  Faith 
and  Work ;  that  they  had,  indeed,  no  revolutionary 
ideas  of  universal  liberty,  but  yet,  what  answered 
the  purpose  quite  as  well,  an  abiding  faith  in  the 
brotherhood  of  men  as  children  of  God;  and  that 
they  did  not  so  much  propose  to  make  all  things 
new,  as  to  develop  the  latent  possibilities  of  Eng 
lish  law  and  English  character,  by  clearing  away 
the  fences  by  which  the  abuse  of  the  one  was  grad 
ually  discommoning  the  other  from  the  broad  fields 
of  natural  right.  They  were  not  in  advance  of 
their  age,  as  it  is  called,  for  no  one  who  is  so  can 
ever  work  profitably  in  it;  but  they  were  alive  to 
the  highest  and  most  earnest  thinking  of  their 
time.  Dr.  Palfrey  also  makes  it  clear  that  the 
thought  of  separation  from  the  parent  state  was 
not  only  not  unfamiliar  to  the  minds  of  the  leaders 
of  New  England  emigration,  but  that  they  looked 
forward  to  it  and  prepared  for  it  as  something 
that  might  be  expedient  or  necessary  according  to 
the  turn  of  events.  Apart  from  contemporary 
evidence  of  their  hopes  and  intentions,  he  finds  in 
the  inevitable  results  of  the  institutions  they 
founded  the  proof  of  what  they  meant  to  do. 


Palfrey's  History  of  New  England      239 

The  present  volume  brings  the  history  down  to 
one  of  the  limits  which  the  author  had  originally 
set  to  his  labors, — the  fall  of  the  Andros  govern 
ment.  He  tells  the  story  of  King  Philip's  war 
with  satisfactory  minuteness,  quoting  the  pictur 
esque  passages  of  earlier  narrators;  he  gives  us  a 
most  interesting  and  instructive  chapter  on  the 
early  legislation  of  the  Colonies,  useful  for  the 
final  extinction  of  some  old  falsehoods,  which  still 
give  a  buzz  now  and  then,  like  winter  flies;  and 
he  traces  the  gradual  decline,  we  will  not  say  of 
the  public  spirit,  but  in  the  moral  courage  and 
principle  of  those  who  should  have  been  its  in- 
spirers  and  leaders.  We  are  come  now  upon  a 
new  generation,  prosperous  in  their  affairs,  and 
forgetful  alike  of  the  trials  of  the  pioneers  and 
of  the  end  for  wihich  they  thought  it  light  to 
endure  them.  The  day  of  compromises  and  ex 
pedients  had  arrived.  This  is  not  the  first  time  in 
the  course  of  his  history  that  Dr.  Palfrey,  by  his 
interpretation  and  comment  of  the  past,  has  given 
a  new  meaning  to  events  that  have  taken  place 
under  our  own  eyes;  and  we  suspect  that  it  was 
by  no  mere  study  of  contemporary  documents 
that  he  learned  how  to  appreciate  the  motives  of 
the  men  to  whom  they  relate.  There  is  an  ad 
mirable  consistency  and  candor  in  his  portraits  of 
the  leaders  of  this  period  of  decline;  and  the  re 
proof  of  timidity  and  self-seeking  is  not  unbecom 
ing  in  the  mouth  of  one  who  has  himself  made 
sacrifices  for  principle,  and  never  flinched  in  the 
service  of  truth. 


240  The  Bound  Table 

In  the  Preface,  Dr.  Palfrey  bids  farewell  to  his 
work  with  an  affectionate  regret  that  has  some 
thing  almost  pathetic  in  it.  In  spite  of  his  fare 
well  speech,  however,  and  the  falling  of  the  cur 
tain,  we  cannot  help  hoping  that  he  will  greet  us 
again  in  successive  last  appearances,  till  he  has 
brought  his  work  down  to  the  end  of  another  of 
those  cycles  of  which  he  speaks. 

"But  the  cycle  of  New  England  is  eighty-six 
years.  In  the  spring  of  1603,  the  family  of  Stuart 
ascended  the  throne  of  England.  At  the  end  of 
eighty-six  years,  Massachusetts  having  been  be 
trayed  to  her  enemies  by  her  most  eminent  and 
trusted  citizen,  Joseph  Dudley,  the  people,  on  the 
19th  day  of  April,  1689,  committed  their  prisoner, 
the  deputy  of  the  Stuart  King,  to  the  fort  in  Bos 
ton  which  he  had  built  to  overawe  them.  Another 
eighty-six  years  passed,  and  Massachusetts  had 
been  betrayed  to  her  enemies  by  her  most  eminent 
and  trusted  citizen,  Thomas  Hutchinson,  when,  at 
Lexington  and  Concord,  on  the  19th  of  April, 
1775,  her  farmers  struck  the  first  blow  in  the  War 
of  American  Independence.  Another  eighty-six 
years  ensued,  and  a  domination  of  slaveholders, 
more  odious  than  that  of  Stuarts  or  of  Guelphs, 
had  been  fastened  upon  her,  when,  on  the  19th 
of  April,  1861,  the  streets  of  Baltimore  were 
stained  by  the  blood  of  her  soldiers  on  their  way 
to  uphold  liberty  and  law  by  the  rescue  of  the 
National  Capital." 

In  taking  leave  of  Dr.  Palfrey,  then,  as  we  pre 
fer  to  say,  for  the  present,  we  cannot  but  congrat- 


Palfrey's  History  of  New  England       241 

ulate  him  on  the  real  service  he  has  done  to  our 
history,  and  to  the  understanding  of  our  national 
character.  Patient,  thoughtful,  exact,  and  with 
those  sensitive  moral  sympathies  which  are  worth 
more  than  all  else  to  an  historian,  he  has  added 
to  our  stock  of  truth,  and  helped  us  in  the  way  of 
right  thinking.  No  doubt  there  are  periods  and 
topics  more  picturesque,  but  we  think  him  most 
sure  of  lasting  fame  who  has  chosen  a  subject 
where  the  deepest  interest  is  a  moral  one ;  for  while 
men  weary  of  pictures,  there  is  always  that  in  the 
deep  things  of  God  which  sooner  or  later  attracts 
and  charms  them. 


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